The Boarding House
by KhamanV
Summary: The Mandalorian strikes out along the Outer Rim to explore for clues to his child's heritage. Necessity quickly forces him and the child to find safety and supply on their travels, however, and they end up at a tiny, failing settlement deep in a restless jungle. But soon the Mandalorian discovers the friendly village isn't as alone as he first thought...
1. Chapter 1

**The Boarding House**

_"What I don't know about, I sure as hell am gonna learn." ~ The Wild Bunch_

1.

. . .

The Razor Crest was adrift. Fortunately, this was for fuel-saving purposes and not due to yet another dogfight with a wannabe with a little zest up his rump. Since the Jawas had reshuffled the guts of the old bucket, energy efficiency was down another several percent, and the ship hadn't exactly been a top of the line Canto Blight corvette before that. Instead, it hung peacefully a few hundred clicks outside a seldom-used hyperspace lane deep in the Outer Rim.

The Mandalorian didn't much care for staying on the lanes while he figured out where to start his foundling's journey, not with the risk of Imp heat still in their wake. At least his Guild reputation was clean again. Unfortunately, these routes were still safer until he knew the ship could handle being off-grid for longer jaunts again. And it also translated into making refuels easier.

Usually.

He slapped at the console, which had helpfully informed him that the nearest known refueling station was a long, long way beyond what the Crest's current resources could handle, then resettled grumpily in his seat and told the computer to look for anything habitable and local. There were always places hidden away where someone could trade for a little ship-juice. More the deeper you went into the Rim and weren't too particular about the local ethics. Mandalorian Din Djarin wasn't, and the handful of (junk) weapons he'd confiscated from the last idiot with a 'plan' would make for a decent trade. So long as the traders he met with were also none too particular.

A little _clunk!_ came from behind him as the steel ball dropped onto the floor. Only the rigorous training of his creed, and becoming _very_ used to the green bean's shenanigans kept him from half-jumping out of his armor. Din instead sighed as he stopped the ad hoc toy's roll with his booted foot, reaching down to pick it up. "Stop dropping it," he told the child, sitting up in the makeshift crib in the rear of the cockpit. "Going to give me a heart attack."

"Bwa!" said the child, taking the ball back with a clear-eyed stare that said _that_ had gone in one broad, floppy ear and straight out the other.

"Yeah," said Din, already tired all over again. "Figured."

The computer beeped to tell him it had more helpful news, this time in the listing of several dozen outposts found in an expanded radial search of their current location. Most of those listings, probably last updated sometime never, had extremely useful Imperial information attached. Such as 'yeah, it exists' and 'they might be sentient here.'

"Thanks," said Din to nobody, as sarcastically as he could manage, and he started manually going through the database listings himself, comparing them with a different output of hyperlane usage to see if there was anything he could take a chance on. Because it sure wasn't like he could get out and push, if the Crest completely guttered out.

. . .

Two hours later, Din had trimmed the listings down to four possibles and was rolling the steel ball around his palm and occasionally along the back of his gloved wrist while the child watched from the disused co-pilot's seat, hypnotized by the trick. It beat having to chase the kid down the gangway again, losing his place on the list. The kid was _this_ close to figuring out how to open his armory, and that just wasn't gonna be a good day on the ship for anyone when it finally happened. Childproofing hadn't been on the mind when the Crest came off the assembly line, and it sure as blurrg dung hadn't been on Din's when he'd first stepped on board as an accredited bounty hunter, but _apparently_ now this was on the list of stuff he had to think about on the daily. Because of course it was.

Din sighed and twisted the ball back into place on the console, drawing a disappointed coo from the child. "Yeah, forget that a second. What do you think? I've got…" He leaned forward, looking at his short list again. "Well. I've got a refitted Imperial dock right at the edge of what we can reach. That's going to be crawling with New Republic, but they're also really busy. Got a low-contact civ on a planet that shows up twice in Imperial records. They didn't like the bucketheads, which, fair, but maybe they won't like me. Got a supposedly settled moon with nice atmo, almost no signal, which means not many ships and probably not a lot of fuel. And a mining rig on a drained asteroid field, which may have a skeleton crew on board and some junk I can siphon."

He leaned back, his voice drawling out from under the helmet. "Vacation spots, all. Know I could use some sun after all that time in the Nevarro sewers."

The child gurgled unhappily.

"Come on, that was a good joke."

A little green hand grasped towards the ball, and then, threateningly, towards a bunch of shiny red buttons. Din reached out and gently pulled the hand back. "One, two, three, or four? Might as well leave it up to chance, they all suck."

"Bwee!" said the child, ignoring him and blinking at the ball. "Bwa!"

"That a three or a one?" said Din, knowing it was neither, but what the hell.

"Bweegh!" The little nails scraped the steel ball. The kid really needed better toys, but there wasn't exactly a gift shop floating around in this stretch of space.

"Three?"

"Gah!" said the child, firmly. His hand dug into Din's glove, wanting attention from him, wanting to play.

Din sighed and pulled the child onto his lap, patting the fuzzy head until he felt the child lean hard into him, temporarily content. "Three it is. If we get stuck, hey, at least we can breathe the air while we starve to death."

"Gweh," said the child, and for whatever reason, it made Din Djarin feel a little better. He leaned past the kid's head and input his choice, the Razor Crest firing back up into noisy but reliable life. A small moon, well away from any major hyperspace thoroughfares, barely populated and worth no notice.

Nothing bad ever happened on tiny jungle moons at the edge of known space, right? He thought about the odds. Yeah. They'd be fine.

Sure they would.

. . .

Jhas Krill. A tiny jungle moon that, according to the computer's brief description, had been on the Empire's radar for possibly having a Dathomirian witch living on it. If that had ever been true, and the listing had been iffy on the subject, sure as blaster fire she wasn't there now. The Mandalorian scanned as he came in for a landing, finding a tiny village, a few other low energy signatures in the jungle beyond that could be anything, and not a whole hell of a lot else. Perfect for staying low. Not great for a rapid, fully-fueled exit, but what the hey. He assumed he knew what he was getting into.

The Mandalorian brought the ship down on a patch set out a ways from the village, trampled down, somewhat kept clear, and even fitted with some blinkers to at least make it _look_ like a proper landing field. There were a few small skiffs set aside. Any landers or bigger ships were probably anchored somewhere in orbit. He hadn't bothered to look for civ droppers.

The jungle, clearly, had other ideas about its dominion, and he could see as he hovered in for the drop that nature had already recovered a good chunk of the open space with thick, dangerous looking vines. Ignoring the eager squeals of the child, he leaned over his console to get a better view of a thin path that led towards the settlement. No sign of a welcoming party. Well, that was both good and bad, but hey. Nobody was shooting yet.

He took his time before disembarking, bringing a full weapons kit and trying to get the kid to stay in the cot he'd made for the kid between the armory and the carbonite freezers. "Look," he tried to tell the child. "At least let me get a whiff of the place, okay? _Then_ you can waddle your little feet off the ship."

The child bapped and blatted at him, clearly unconvinced. In the end, he shut the door on the fussing kid. Wouldn't hold, the child was more slippery than a Mon Cala eel, but it would buy him a little time to scout in peace.

By the time he'd dropped the ramp, he had visitors. The Mandalorian stayed at the top of the ramp, assessing them. Three humans, probably Corellian by the looks of them. One man, two women. Settlers, and recent ones. There'd been a rash of new colonies since the Republic kicked over the Imperial anthill, and not all of them were shaping up to be wildly successful. By the size of the village on his scan, and the look of their clothing, well worn but cared for, this was definitely one of those.

None of them held an identifiable weapon. Good.

None of them looked thrilled to see a guy in full Mandalorian armor. Not so good, but understandable.

He tromped down the ramp, hands clearly off his weapons, and waited for them to come deeper into the field towards him. He gave the one in the lead a polite but silent nod, a tallish, stocky man in drab browns.

"Welcome, Mandalorian," said the man, careful but not rude, either. "Shipment?"

"No," said the Mandalorian, watching their expressions. "Traveling through. Need a resupply, if we can barter."

The woman to his left spoke up, watching him carefully, then examining the ship. "We're tight on anything that can't keep us going, but we can feed you, give you some rest on a real bed."

"Fuel?" He looked at the woman, immediately realizing they'd arranged a common but sensible play. The guy took point until they got a sniff of him, but this one was the village's leader. The other woman kept watch. Probably a runner if this went wrong. Not bad. He wouldn't make a thing out of it.

"Little bit. Take some time to put it together, and not sure how long you're willing to wait for that."

"Ma'am, I can wait as long as we need. Ship's on fumes."

She grimaced, but not unkindly. "Explains it." He could read the rest on her face, the ghost of real surprise at the ship's arrival in her nowhere hamlet, and some relief that it wasn't anything worse than what he'd said. Assuming he was honest, which, well, he was. But she looked smart enough to wonder about that. The subtle paranoia was interesting, and he filed it away for thought later.

And then she looked past him again, this time with open surprise. "Oh my," she said softly.

_Oh crap_, thought the Mandalorian as the happy coo came from behind. "Guess he could use some fresh air," he said, trying to not sound as exasperated as he felt.

"Of _course_ he does," said the man, hunkering down with his hands on his knees as the child papped his way towards the humans. "Hey there, little one. You need some nosh-nosh?"

"Maaagh!" said the child, absolutely delighted by becoming the center of attention. Again.

_Nosh-nosh. And here I thought it really was going to be that blaster shot to my skull that killed me._ One of the many, many benefits of wearing a helmet full time was that no one could see the expression on a Mandalorian's face, so long as he didn't go all in to roll his head back so that he could stare at the sky and wish for death. "Probably a bath, too."

"Jerrit, looks like your place is getting a little business finally." The village leader grinned at him. "Mandalorian, welcome to Witchmoat."

"So it was true?" He couldn't resist the blurt, cocking his helmet towards her. "Used to be a Nightsister here?"

She shrugged. "Found some scraps left behind when our ship landed a couple years ago. We had the same information in the databanks that you probably found. No sign of her since, but we had good luck clearing the jungle around where she might've lived. Left the hut we found alone, just in case. Jerrit keeps hoping it'll become a tourist thing, but…" She gestured around them at the thick, unwelcoming jungle. "Yeah. Anyway, I'm Mo Deera." She nodded to the silent woman. "This is my sister, Fala Deera."

A curt nod at her acknowledgment. The Mandalorian respected that.

Mo grinned enough for the two of them, obviously used to her sister's attitude, looking down at the child. "Let's get you both comfortable, shall we? We'll talk about barter later, but we can probably do something for your ship."

"Good news," said the Mandalorian, returning to his casual truculence. He fell into step behind the trio as they moved to lead him to the village, knowing full damn well the child, irrepressible, was hot on his heels.


	2. Chapter 2

Witchmoat was a cheap prefab colony-drop town, with extra storage 'huts' made out of old fuel tanks, and a shower of ever-present rust replacing the concept of paint. It was clean and well-kept, however, with tamped down, well-lit paths trailing between the small homes. Someone in the colony had taken to dyeing scraps of cloth and brightening the structures with braided ropes and fluttering ribbons, probably enlisting the settlement's few children at the job to keep them happy and motivated.

Din Djarin didn't know at first if the slightly larger structure Jerrit was leading him and the kid to could even be classified as an inn. Then he saw the way the home had been divided up, and realized what the man had sacrificed for this chance at some personal dream. Jerrit had given himself only a tight slice of privacy up near the front of the home, enough space for him and, to the Mandalorian's surprise, Jerrit's young son, who waited for them on a rusting porch. The bulk of the place was a cozy common room latched onto a surprisingly solid-looking kitchen area, and over a half dozen comfortably-sized rooms upstairs, each with a clean window overlooking the town.

"Good looking place," allowed the Mandalorian, genuinely impressed.

"Clean up's been a breeze for a while," said Jerrit with the sardonic good humor of a man used to looking on the bright side. "I'd offer you the far corner room for extra privacy and quiet, but my friend, you could sleep in the commons and be just as well off."

"You could have just thrown me a couple of blankets and told me which storage tank was mine and I would have shrugged and taken it," said the Mandalorian, enjoying the banter.

"What kind of hospitality would that be? You'll get the room on the far right, top of the stairs, it's the biggest and gets some extra warm off my heat unit, your kid'll appreciate it at night. Chill comes sharp, then. Everyone keeps close and quiet after dark." Jerrit waved at his son, who dropped off the porch and jogged up to them, his wide eyes fixing on the foundling at Din's ankles. "Dyrric, want to give them the tour?"

"What's his name?" said Dyrric, not looking at anything but the child at Din's side.

"Doesn't have one," said the Mandalorian, uncomfortable with the direct question. Next it would be about his.

The boy peered up at him, his face reflecting off the silvery beskar, but he didn't. "What do _you_ call him?"

"Kid."

Dyrric rolled his eyes, heavy and full with that sometimes wise exhaustion children had with adults. "That sucks."

"Dyrric!" The name bolted out of Jerrit, aghast.

"It's all right," said the Mandalorian, amused. The child cooed and patted a hand out towards the human boy, curious about him. "The kid's still very young, and he's under my care. He'll have a name someday, but right now it's… complicated." He looked down into the foundling's wide-eyed stare and gave up a known truth. "But he loves attention, especially from nice people."

"Can I play with him?" The eagerness in the boy's voice told Din a lot - a young boy with responsibilities beyond his age, only one parent to support him and barely holding on himself, and feeling alienated from the few other kids in town.

Din knew how to spot a losing battle, and more importantly, ones that shouldn't even be fought. "Sure," he said, amiably enough. Eh, it would give the bean some extra socialization. Bounty hunters and droids were dull company for foundlings, and the kid had dealt with both too much lately.

"Don't take the child too far into the jungle, and stay _away_ from the old hut," said Jerrit, putting his hands on his hips for emphasis. More clues. These were things that happened, and happened a _lot_. Faint worry hit Din's gut, and he recognized it, annoyed with himself, as growing parental concern. The kid would be fine. The kid could somehow toss a critter across a canyon if he felt he had to.

The kid would _absolutely_ get into trouble out here.

_Ehhh, I'll deal with it when I have to._

Dyrric hid a fast pout, but not all that well. "Sure thing, Dad." He looked up into the Mandalorian's helmet. "Come on, I'll show you around the place."

. . .

There was also a private bath off of the top floor, one that had no windows, locked, and was also installed with a strangely top-tier sonic-wash stall that could hose a kid off in five fussing seconds. Din eyed the door to the bath through his helmet with the sort of yearning some people spared for luxury dining, or the poetry of lost loves. There was a wash system on his ship, of course, and he kept himself as regularly clean as a bounty hunter who got shot at nearly daily could hope to be. But a whole-ass bath like this in a town the size of a mouse droid?

Suddenly he was kind of in love with Witchmoat, and at first barely noticed the other bizarrely good amenities Dyrric showed off, like the public kitchen the inn operated with the help of a town gardener's fresh supply and a good mech-kit system, the stupidly soft bed in a room with a door that locked and a window with - Din almost groaned in delight, betraying himself - full tint controls programmed into the crystal-glass for even more privacy. _And_ an auto-wash laundry bin. He was going to have to run back to the Crest and get five months of backed up gun-cleaning rags and under-armor thins while he could.

"Where'd you guys come from before joining a settlement ship?" Din asked the boy.

Dyrric shrugged, toeing his shoe at the top step. "Dad ran a place. On Corellia."

"Yeah?"

"I don't know much. He was pretty popular."

And ended up running a tightrope gig in a backwater, still with the heart of a luxury proprietor. Weird, but all right. Din let it go for now. The Empire had shuffled a lot of people's priorities over the years, possible Jerrit had wanted the simplest answer, and the one Din had the most obvious sympathy for: get himself and his kid out of the firing line and into a nice, quiet place for a while.

He realized the top floor of the inn had gone silent again, the foundling already conked out on the bed in their temporary new room, and Dyrric, still at the top of the steps, looking at him. "Question, kid?"

Silent tap-taps of the shoe as the boy looked away. "Is it neat?"

"Is what neat?"

"Being a bounty hunter? Being a Mandalorian?" Hidden but savage eagerness, the quiet desires of a bored child in a tiny town. Uh-oh.

Din studied the boy, picking over his words carefully. "I lost my family. All of it. Was younger than you. My clan is my family now."

They still were, weren't they? The few of them left out there, the clan armorer surely holding fast on Nevarro until her duty was complete, the cheerfully antagonistic artillery expert, Paz, not one to go down until he took a full Destroyer of Imps out with him, the boys he once trained with, now possibly lone Mandalorians adrift like him. He pushed the thought away, the worry, the grief still lingering. These were not the Way - although the Way couldn't always change what the heart felt in private.

"My clan lives in danger, now. Because of what happened with the Empire." That was true, in more than one way. He could say that much without betrayals. The kid's eyes were still on him, and they were huge. "_I _live in danger. Almost every day."

A thought struck him. He hunched down, turned his neck hard so that the boy could see the scorch mark still on the back of his helmet. He hadn't managed to scrub it away yet. "That shot almost killed me, Dyrric, the way it made my skull smash into my own armor. Almost bled out. I've had others like it. In the arms. In the chest. I've got scars all over me from years of hard work. It's just that my armor hides them. That mark on my helmet is just the most recent chance I had to be passed by my own death."

He turned back to look at the boy, now at eye level. Still wide-eyed, absorbing what he said. "This place is going to be the first safe rest I've had in a while." He let the last word drawl a little, giving it a grander sense of time before continuing. "You can't know how grateful I'm going to be for that."

Dyrric blinked, his eyes damp as he thought things over. They were true, and they were hard. "My dad wants me to be like him someday."

"Yeah?"

Dyrric looked down. "I don't know about running an inn. My mom taught me to cook before… she was a really great cook. I _loved_ helping her."

Din allowed himself to sound a little softer than usual. "I bet you'd be a great cook someday, too. You know, that's the heart of a lot of places I've been, makes you remember them, makes you come back."

The boy found a new smile, plucking its way in from the corners, twisting a little as he started the process of thinking over a new dream to replace an old one. "Maybe I'll do that. _Anyone_ can help me run a place, but not everyone can cook."

Din snorted through his helmet, knowingly. "Yeah, _that's_ a fact."

Dyrric blinked away all of that, looked into the blackened visor that hid Din's face. "I should leave you alone for a while, so you can get your boots off or whatever. But dinner will be in an hour! We always make enough for a bunch of the village, so lots of people don't have to do it themselves."

"You gonna help with that, kid?" He made it sound as encouraging as he could. Meant it, even.

"Yeah, I already made the dough this morning!" And with that, the kid bounded down the steps two at the time, already tearing off on another tangent of whatever internal life he kept to himself.

Din Djarin hung his head, still hunkered at the top of the steps, and allowed himself one good, heavy, chest-stretching, and deeply world-weary sigh, having, he hoped, saved another kid from ending up like him. _You're welcome, Jerrit. Hopefully you'll never have to find out why._

. . .

All that said, the flaky, pastry-wrapped meat and veggie pie the Mandalorian took upstairs to eat in unhelmeted privacy was absolutely _delicious_. If that kid went bounty, the culinary galaxy was going to miss out.

. . .

Din kept the window's tint just dark enough that even a good scan wouldn't pick up his bare, tingling face behind it. The foundling was out cold, stunned into deep restfulness by a double whammy of some hearty, rich-smelling broth, and happily chasing Dyrric around the common area in exchange for Din's wonderful hour and more of solitude spent upstairs in the bath and the private room. He sipped at a cup of clean, brisk water and watched the town's nighttime patterns begin.

Wasn't much to see, to be honest. There were a couple of shopfronts meant to facilitate trade between the residents, and they closed up well before the sun dipped past the leafy horizon. He watched frost patterns trail up from the bottom of the window, adding a pretty, glazing layer to the tint protecting his identity from the world, and here and there he saw bundled up figures emerging to visit a neighbor or put a protective tarp over some outside plant.

The cup of water drained, he picked up his helmet and was just about to put it back on when he noticed a knot of more furtive figures. Two from the central homestead that doubled as Mo Deera's town hall, a couple thicker figures that weren't Corellian, and a slender figure with what he unmistakably identified as a blast rifle slung over her shoulder. Fala Deera, the no-nonsense sister. He recognized how she moved, all business, and no trouble under her eye.

They slipped quietly through a town with windows now shut and tinted like his own, up and up to its dimly lit boundary, and then disappeared onto a faint jungle path that he'd first assumed was just a waste trail.

Hunters? No, he decided. Too many, too bulky a crew, just one rifle. The meat was coming from a rancher family on the eastern side of the town, and she had a pretty stable-looking herd.

Night scouts checking the boundaries? Again, too many, one rifle, tight cluster. He would have focused more on the route to and from the landing field, not up into tight, patchy jungle with no sign of other sentient life.

He frowned, unkempt hair managing to tickle at the back of his bare neck in a warning he didn't like. The slip of paranoia on Mo Deera's face - he'd been unexpected, but they weren't _shocked_ by visitors, either.

The helmet rolled around his hands until the faceplate came back up to look at him. He glanced at the blackened glass that hid his eyes during most hours, then glanced at the foundling. Still knocked out. Good.

Because only one of them should be this stupid at any given time.

Din Djarin locked the helmet back over his face and quietly re-armed himself, slipping soundlessly out the door and sealing it behind him. The innkeeper's boy had done him another valuable service, jolting up and down the stairs the way he had. He knew every squeaky step already, every place the rust of the steely town could scrape a beskar boot, and he passed out of the inn and into the shadows between the buildings like a ghost.

Maybe the nighttime crew weren't professional trackers… but the Mandalorian _was_, and now he had fresh questions about this sleepy little town. Maybe the answers were a lot of nothing, and he'd be able to go back to that lovely, private room and nap with his bare face on a real pillow.

And maybe they weren't.

The Mandalorian didn't like surprises. Better to make sure. For his tiny clan's sake.


	3. Chapter 3

The Mandalorian kept the villagers at the very edge of his visual range, using his usual toolkit to make sure he was not only on their trail, but not leaving much of one himself, either. The walk they took was a long one; he watched the sky change as an hour ticked by, then another, as they went deeper into a jungle that skillfully hid the trail. It _was_ a trail, though, designed and cut deep and with a few switchback tricks and other gimmicks to throw, say, a nosy kid or busybody trader off and send them back to the village.

The heat signature was so faint at first that he almost missed it. A place where the trail began to widen, began to become something more _used_. He let himself lag back even further, his senses tingling as the jungle terrain stopped being thick, staying uneven as it opened up.

He looked around and found a likely looking set of ropey vines going up along a tree so broad it might as well be a wall. He slipped up it, staying under its thick boughs and keeping its rough bark core between him and what he realized had to be a large structure, hidden deep within the forbidding jungle.

It took him a moment to recapture a visual on the villagers. When he did, he frowned inside his helmet. Three more energy signatures with them, active life. He clicked off the heat vis and took in the scene with only his own eyes and instincts.

Yeah, some black-walled facility loomed just ahead, so thick it read cold as stone at first on most sensor scans. The villagers stayed huddled together, talking with a particularly long-necked Ithorian wrapped in a rich brown robe, and a pair of large figures bracing him.

The prickle along his skin came back at the sight of the two green-skinned guards in full laser-resist armor, with only a hint of broad, round nose and sharp tusks coming out of their helms. That was _never_ a good sign. The Mandalorian didn't like to make too many easy assumptions about society in the Outer Rim, especially post-Empire, but over all his hunts with the Guild, he'd personally seen Gamorreans five times. All five times meant the same damn thing.

A Hutt was close.

He grimaced under the helmet and studied the villagers. The body language alone told him plenty, and their faces said the rest outright. Fala Deera took the lead here, and now he read off a real expression on her face: honest loathing. She focused mostly on the Ithorian, who was probably what passed for a diplomatic go-between here. But a solid theory was already coming together in the Mandalorian's head, watching the village men lean back from the guards, obviously not wanting to be here.

A remote village like Witchmoat would be easy pickings for a gang, or worse, cartel. Continue to isolate them, control what little supply they had coming in and out, and their survival would rely on keeping the new crime lord happy. The village was now a free workforce and loot laundering facility. The finer details were still up for guesswork, but the outline seemed pretty clear. And it answered why his welcoming party hadn't been startled by a Mandalorian showing up - and gave another reason why why Fala Deera, this unhappy envoy to the Hutt's crew, had been with the group from the start.

The Mandalorian rattled a quiet sigh in his helmet and continued to watch as Fala argued about something or other with the stoic leatherneck, making sure of what he was seeing. But the rest of the scene reinforced his theory. No juiced-up speederbikes, true, but they would be worthless in terrain like this one. But he saw the faint outline of what had to be a pleasure skiff's storage hold on this side of the fortress, where the field had been cleared out widely enough for maneuvering. Probably didn't bring it out much, though based on the dirt tracks he saw, he wagered it was specially rigged for a higher hover range. Get a nice view of the jungle, a little sunshine while swigging down expensive and probably illegal spirits.

There, a guard tower camouflaged by jungle canopy. And another, flanking the rear of the place. Swirling marks in the dirt that suggested hover-pallets overloaded with illicit deliveries. Droid tracks - here he hoped they didn't have an IG unit. For multiple reasons, if he were honest, but for right now he focused on the fact that one of those on site likely meant whoever ran the place had some pretty good backing. But no, closer study at the scuffing said Gonks on a routine, making sure the various generators were holding up.

He squinted at the walls and realized there were some nice automated defenses in place, too. Well, it's not like he'd planned to wander on up and ask questions. Yet, anyway.

The Mandalorian slid gently back down from his roost and decided this would be a good time to pick his way back up the trail and return to the inn. He had a lot to think about.

Especially about whether or not any of this actually mattered to him.

. . .

Din slept, and slept well and heavily, and when he woke up, groggy from the luxury of being secure and wildly comfortable for _once_ this year, he momentarily forgot all about his late night walk and its worrisome revelations. He looked around in a fast daze, his face bare and chilly despite the shared heat in the building, and found that the little one was still completely zonked out. Honestly, he was a foundling and part of Din's family now, so it wasn't like it would break every rule he knew. But it was habit, and Din felt it was a damn good one. He put his helmet back on first and glared at the soft pillow under his elbow, as if it had deliberately conspired against him.

Then he remembered, grumbling an '_oh_' under his breath with actual hostility. He _could_ have simply had a nice, week long vacation in this place, waiting for enough fuel to get scraped together for him to start bargaining, but _no_, the fuel was probably going to have to get quietly bartered for and slipped to him (or blackmailed to him?) under the auspices of a Hutt, and the village could be spying on him, and his communications systems were probably out, and _hell_.

"Dammit," said Din to himself, more grumpily than ever, and because the spirits and the stars in the sky were full of bastards, _now_ the kid woke up and fixed on his shiny face with the happy, blatting delight of that genetically perfected monstrosity: a morning person.

Din dropped backwards onto his mattress in defeat, trying to not sigh as the child clambered over towards him to bap and chirp, eagerly, right into his field of vision.

. . .

By the time he coaxed the child downstairs, it was the tail end of breakfast. A few villagers were still lingering, finishing up a quick breakfast before working at their hard-fought fields or moisture vaps or whatever, and they glanced up at the Mandalorian with amiable nods.

Dyrric and his father were still manning the kitchen, however, and the child at Din's feet clambered up onto a stool to wave his little green hands at his new friend. Dyrric mustered a small, tired smile at the foundling, and pulled out a wooden tray already loaded up with a full breakfast, still steaming fresh. "Figured you two might sleep in a bit, my dad says space travel out here can be really tiring."

"Yeah," said the Mandalorian taking the tray, looking the kid over without being obvious about it. Dyrric shot his dad's back a glance when he was done, a small frown creasing the young face. He handed the cup of poaching egg and broth to the little one, who grasped it with his tiny clawed hands and immediately started slurping. "Good call. Thanks for keeping a tray warm for us, Dyrric."

The boy flicked a glance up at him, thankful and then oddly furtive in the way of kids that have a secret and are sometimes bad at it. Then he looked at his dad again with his face much more restrained from longer practice, busying himself with a set of dirty trays that needed his attention.

The prickle hit Din anew. The kid _knew_, the kid wasn't supposed to know, and it ate at the kid daily. Which almost certainly meant the dad knew, which means the whole village knew what the score was. Probably some word came down last night, new tithes for the Hutt or a bad delivery incoming. He didn't know. But the village didn't want to make a situation out of it, either. No one stared at his back. Another farmer dropped off her tray as he thought, giving him a friendly nod.

He simply couldn't smell a trap here. If he was ever going to end up in the net, too, it wasn't because of these people. They were genuine.

He chewed all that over, but he couldn't stand there and look at the boy and his dad for long doing it, either. "Is it okay if I leave the kid down here with you for a while?" He lifted the tray to indicate the obvious.

"Sure thing," said Dyrric, and a little life came back into his voice. "Just leave your tray on the counter wherever, it'll be fine. Or I'll come up and get it, if you want."

"I might take a nap," said Din, and that was probably true. "You're right, I'm pretty wiped out. Be easier on me if you come grab it. About a half hour?" He waited for the nod and then left the foundling at the countertop, slurping and chirping happily.

. . .

Dyrric gave him closer to forty, which gave Din more time to think over, in a half-doze, a few tactical approaches. He liked kids well enough, but talking to them was a different kind of energy than filling out a bounty board, and his endurance wasn't as strong there. The foundling was exhausting in a completely different way, one he'd never been expecting to deal with so personally, and now he had this to wrangle, too.

He stayed seated on a chair by the window, nodding a greeting when the kid came in. Dyrric looked around the room, a trained eye looking to see what his dad might want to clean up or launder later. Which wouldn't be much; the Mandalorian was raised to be fastidious, especially in outsider places. "Good breakfast, Dyrric. Thank you again."

The kid nearly jumped out of his skin. Yeah, he was wired up about something. That prickle came again, telling him to wait, to see what the kid did next. Maybe this was going to be a _lot_ easier than he thought.

"I'm glad," said Dyrric, not looking at him. His hand shook as he picked up the tin drinking cup and put it back on the tray. The next question came out of him with all the smoothness of a bantha's hairy rump. "What do you think of Witchmoat so far?"

The Mandalorian didn't say anything for a long, deliberately uncomfortable moment, waiting for the kid to start sneaking furtive, telling glances his way. "The people seem nice, Dyrric. A quiet, pleasant village. A real break to find, all the way out here."

Dyrric's face fell, but only for a second. He looked away, busying himself.

Inside the helmet, Din allowed himself a wry smile. "Shame about that Hutt fortress out in the jungle, leeching off the place."

Dyrric nearly lunged at the Mandalorian, his face desperate for that acknowledgment he had been craving. "I knew it! I _knew_ you'd figure it out! My dad always said Mandalorians couldn't be fooled, I knew that - did you know before you came, are you here to help us, can I do anything, can-"

"Hey." Din reached out and gently but firmly put a gloved hand on the boy's arm, his voice quiet. "Keep it down. No, unfortunately, I'm just a traveller that got low on fuel."

And realistically he should just remedy that little situation and get going, shouldn't he? He wasn't the galaxy's fix-it man. He had a clan of his own now, he had his own responsibilities to look after…

Responsibilities that meant making it safer for other foundlings after his. Safer for kids like he had been, once. Kids like Dyrric, who shouldn't need to make violence part of their future. Much less any of the other brats he saw playing in the dirt streets this morning.

The growl fighting its way out of Din didn't make it to his throat intact. It came out like one of his usual sighs instead. His mouth took off, his brain defeated once again by his own idiot, soft heart. "I figured it out last night, saw some of the villagers take off down a strange trail. I followed them, found the fortress. They're controlling all contact in and out, aren't they? Keeping your supplies barely on life support."

Dyrric nodded, his eyes still bright with hope. "Dad tried to get word to some of his old friends a while ago, but the fortress people wouldn't accept his message. I don't know what happened because of it, but I saw Dad cry. I wasn't supposed to, but I did."

Jerrit, a big, hearty, man with a gift for dry humor. Crying alone in the dark to keep his kid out of it. That, too, hit at Din's chest.

_A blaster shot right under the rib cage would be faster_. The sardonic part of his mind couldn't stop trying to protect him from his own nature. A coo came from the staircase. The foundling was coming back just in time for this emotional scene. Great.

Dyrric turned to reach down for the little guy's hand. Green claws wrapped around a couple of the boy's fingers, and the child beamed up into his face. As if telling him it would be all okay. That they had good people looking after them. Tears sprang into Dyrric's eyes, and he wiped them away, dropping onto the floor next to the child.

The child reached out to Din, bapping out warm and brothy breath strong enough to get picked up by the helmet's breathers, his broad ears drooping a little as he sensed his father-figure's emotional state. He dropped onto Dyrric's knee, his feet flexing worriedly under the short robe.

"Yeah, I know," said Din, not actually understanding what the hell went on in that green, ball-shaped head. He reached out to stroke the soft hair, despite himself. "Dyrric."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to be out of the inn most of today. Can you cover for me? If anyone asks, I'm sleeping. And you don't bother a sleeping Mandalorian, not if you like having kneecaps." He jutted the chin of the helmet at the child. "Keep him busy, too."

"Are you going to do something?" _Way_ too eager.

"Not yet. Need some more information." The Mandalorian leaned forward, armored elbows clanking onto his equally armored thighs, looking at the two kids at his feet like they were all part of some secret conspiracy. Hell, at this point, they were. The important thing right now would be to keep the village out of whatever he did, until he knew for sure he could do anything at all. "I'll keep you in the loop," he added, suspecting that would be just enough of a tag to keep the boy from doing anything too wild on his own.

"Thank you," said Dyrric, and the tears were back. Relief, like a long-dammed lake, hitting the kid right in the gut. "Thank you _so_ much, sir."

Dammit. _Damn it_. Well, he was stuck now.

The child, innocent and beaming, lifted his ears and cooed approvingly up into Din's mask. As if he understood the shift in Din's mind somehow. Maybe he did.

_Fine_, though Din Djarin, Mandalorian and professional bounty hunter, ground down to the bone by two children, one of whom couldn't even talk yet. _I guess I'm just going to have to figure out how to ruin a Hutt's whole life_.


	4. Chapter 4

Dyrric never saw the Mandalorian actually leave the inn after the kids left his room, but the little child that had arrived with him somehow knew when he was gone. He rarely let go of Dyrric's leg after a certain point, patting around him as he finished cleaning the kitchen after the lunch 'rush' - actually an hour of about ten hungry laborers taking what break they could before getting back to their machines and fuel-slogs, and who basically just helped an average day go by a little faster. Asking Dad if they could bum around the village and play after the last tray got a sonic rinse earned him a bemused, easy nod.

"Just be careful, Dyrric," was the extra warning he got. "You've got one to look out for today."

Sure, no problem. A new arrival who hadn't yet seen the _coolest thing on the entire planet_.

The old hut and its countless silent mysteries. Witches! Artifacts! And clumps of fur that had no clear answer to the riddle of their source. Dyrric's mind always lit up easily with imaginative scenarios about what had gone on in the abandoned hut at the edge of town. He carried the little green child with him part of the way, making sure they didn't get caught by Mo Deera or any of her friends from the weaver circle. They liked to walk in the afternoon, when the air wasn't as hot and sticky as first morning.

The hut itself had a boundary of thick vines and root structures, protecting it from aerial view or assault, keeping it forever separate from the village proper. It made for a safe place to play and not get caught, although the adults never considered it safe. Fortunately, their paranoia meant they checked in on it occasionally. Dad was the only one to pass by it fairly regularly, sometimes even leaving a wrapped offering. Just in case the witch came back.

Dad didn't know much about the Dathomirians, much less Nightsisters, but he'd instilled the idea of basic respect into Dyrric anyway. Sure, Dyrric snuck off to play there, but he never _broke_ anything or messed with stuff that looked weird. It was just a place too interesting to ignore, a place with stories inside it he would never figure out. A place where he could forget he was living in the middle of nowhere, his life pressed down into an unhappy thinness by shadowy figures he never actually saw.

Ghosts weren't real, Dyrric had long ago figured out. But bad men were _very_ real, and he believed even they would never mess with the old hut that was practically growing out of the trees around it. So it was a sanctuary for a kid like him, whether Dad understood that or not. These were good reasons he broke Dad's rule, even if nobody else would get why.

He put the child back on his feet once he got them past the final line of tripping roots, looking around quickly to see that no one else had been there since his last visit. Dyrric had gotten good at noticing fresh tracks in the dirt. Not that he could follow them, or say if it was a leather or metal boot. Not like the Mandalorian surely could, but at least he knew if someone was already there, or had been recently. "Ever seen a witch?"

The child looked up at Dyrric, silent. His ears went back a little, though, making him look interested.

"Me either. I definitely don't think she was a bad person, whoever she was." Dyrric led the child towards the doorway to the hut itself. A purple flag still hung inside the tent, possibly a banner from the witch's homeworld. "I heard they're _supposed_ to be bad, Dathomir witches, but _I_ don't know. You can't believe everything adults tell you." He scoffed, knowingly.

The child cooed, possibly agreeing with him.

"Anyway, she left all sorts of neat stuff in here. I don't touch it, unless it looks really normal, but like, she was growing herbs, and there's still some glowy stuff in pots, and it's just_ neat_ to look at and wonder what it all is." Dyrric went inside, where, as advertised, the hut remained oddly alive with flickering, green light. "Real magic!"

The child hesitated at the doorway, his ears going back in what might have been alarm.

"You okay?" Dyrric, never one to hurt someone on purpose, immediately stopped poking at his favorite bowl - a strange, black pot lined with gold script that glowed blue in the darkness - and went to the child, hunkering down. The wide, seeking eyes weren't looking at him, and clawed feet pawed at the dirt under him. Fresh eagerness hit him, mixing with the worry. "Oh, wow, are you seeing something I can't?"

The child didn't answer him, not even with a blat or a coo. He stared into the hut, his tiny mouth falling open in surprise.

. . .

The child was slowly growing better at understanding what people said around him, although their thoughts and emotions always glowed much more strongly in the Force. He still made mistakes, though, with both. At night he sometimes rolled around, soft, hazy nightmares tickling his mind because he so badly frightened the nice lady who helped the good armored man who took care of him. He thought the nice lady (_Carasynthia? Was that a name? Her name?_ Oh, his mind putting words together, but he felt like it was good to try, that he would need all those words someday and maybe too soon) was hurting the good man! But no, it was just a game and she had been mad-frightened of him for a while afterward.

_That_ had hurt, but when he woke up he remembered that the nice lady had still protected him later. Someday he would understand a way to apologize to her. Someday he would make her mad-scare better.

But right now he was feeling something new and weird and maybe also scary? He could see something _alive_ in the Force all around him, something vital and _green_ and real. And it rooted all the way down into the shadows beneath the Force that lifted him and kept him safe, which he knew could be a bad thing, a place where the goodness and life of the Force could become something much darker and cruel, but the green here wasn't bad?

He cooed to himself, making a noise so he remembered where he was standing, balancing himself in the weave and weft of the Force, and felt the energy drift by, like it was examining him, too. Also like the Force did, touching him and warming him. But not quite. Something primal, but still just as important to the music of life. Different. Possibly dangerous, sometimes. But here its purpose was like the ones he knew - protection, and life, and goodness.

He didn't understand it all, of course, but he took the human boy's larger hand and stepped into the hut a little more, wondering happily at the way the green spiraled around him, licked up the walls of the old structure, keeping it alive in a way that made him want to laugh in delight. This was a _loved_ place, and it didn't mind the children that visited it.

Such roots could be dark, oh yes, but these _definitely_ weren't. There was a kindness buried in the old hut, armored by the rough voice of some distant, elder figure, and it made him think of the good man. _Din_, said those first new words trying to come together inside of him. _Good Din, who takes care of me and likes me no matter what sounds he pretends to make_. The concept of 'father,' if not the word itself. Like a hug, always close, feeling warm despite that pretty silvery armor.

The child blatted, a sound without simple meaning as he let his feet guide him towards an array of containers next to the herb jars that glowed so brightly with power and healing, and he patted at them.

He didn't understand what Dyrric said, not exactly. But the gist could be felt. The boy didn't know what was in the small chests, and he had never opened them, because the chests and the trailing green felt it wasn't time.

But the green trickled across the floor of the hut and lapped warmly at his feet, reaching out to the chest. As if something was okay there? Something that needed to be found. Maybe not meant for today, but very soon now. The child patted again at the chest.

Dyrric tried to gently pull him away, saying something else, something that felt worried. The child wouldn't be deterred, however, and with the scrabble of a claw he popped the top of one of the chests open with the help of a lick of that green life-fire.

The human boy gasped and fell onto his butt, startled. But the child stared at the glowing secret inside, awed by how pretty the rocks were, and how _alive_ they felt. Good rocks, each one a special color, and each one humming songs of great power and protection to him through the Force.

He laughed, a squeaky little giggle, and he quickly palmed a tiny blue sliver before Dyrric slapped the chest closed again and picked him up, lunging back out of the hut.

. . .

Dyrric didn't put the child back down until they were almost back to the inn, at which point he stopped to rub the color back into his drained face. He wanted to look like they'd been running mindlessly around the jungle near the village, not scaring the poop out of himself with… he didn't know. A witch's ghost, her magic left behind. He looked down at the child, still ecstatic and waggling his ears at whatever the hell he'd done. Those chests didn't open! They never opened! Dyrric tried once, back on his first trip to the hut, and something had, he didn't know how to describe it, _sparked_ at his finger like a warning.

But they could be opened now. The child had done _something_ to them, or so it seemed, and was the hut glowing more strongly than usual? He thought, with the assistance of a knot deep down in his stomach, that it had.

"Okay, you _really_ can't talk yet, right?" He tried to not sound frantic, bending down to look the little kid in the face. "Really, really?"

The strange child blatted, then smiled silently up into his face.

"Because we _cannot_ tell anyone what we did, or that anything weird happened. You didn't take anything, did you?"

Broad ears went wiggle-wiggle. Oh boy, that better be an 'of course not.'

"Okay." Dyrric exhaled a long, nervous breath. He scrubbed at his face again. "All right."

The child cooed and gently plucked at his leg, giving him an oddly comforting hug. Dyrric was unable to resist, picking him up again. "Yeah, I think so, too. You want a snack? I'm starving."

A happy noise squeaking through the itsy but broad nose. Oh yeah. The little one could definitely go for a bite.

. . .

Din finished scrubbing the oiled parts of his blaster with a freshly laundered gun cloth, looking over at the mat in the corner of their inn room, where the child was happily playing with a soft toy Dyrric had loaned him. Ugly thing. It was shaped like a fat-butted root vegetable, and seemed to be mostly wedged-together fabric scraps of orange, white, and brown. The 'face' was equally haunting, a gawping, mindless mask with painted on eyes that stared back at the child.

He was going to have a nightmare about the weird hare-bird thing. He just knew it. But hell, it kept the kid happy. "Like I said, the front of the place is guarded to the hilt. Not just the couple of Gamorreans I saw, there's more that's automated. Maybe a clan setup?"

The child hugged the stuffed 'porg,' or whatever it was Dyrric had called the thing, and ignored him.

"Be weird to find a whole new kajidic taking root. There's just not enough around here for a clan to latch onto. Sure, probably they've got a hidden port further out, pulling some smuggler runs out of it. Maybe something anchored in orbit. But if it was a major set-up, it would have come up on scan when we arrived. Nothing did."

The toy bounced off the mat. Thankfully, it didn't have a sound-chip installed.

"So it's not a big operation. Not tiny, but not full-scale, either." Din sighed. "I mean, I could be wrong. Imps can hide their numbers, but a Hutt cartel? They're not subtle people." He continued to think over the situation. "I need to know more before I can get any idea what sort of trouble I can pull off, and to do that, I've got to get inside. Get the lay of the place. Bonus if I can get a look at the Hutt themselves, get a real sense of who we're dealing with."

The porg-thing bounced off the mat again, this time careening towards the wall. The child chased after it and plucked it back up, hugging it tightly to himself with a soft meep. The eyes bulged out of the white face, staring at Din. Staring, blank and awful.

Din shook it off. "There's a side entrance around the other end, but it's for non-village arrivals. Loyalists only, the staff, the servants. Saw a couple of dancers go in easily enough, sure, but that's not going to work for me."

The child gave him a look, curious now, the toy clutched under one arm.

"I mean it _could_." Din's voice turned wry. "Wrap me up in some veils, strap a few gold chains across my breastplate. I could be sexy."

The child stared at him. Somehow, he looked unconvinced.

"A Mandalorian in full armor can be very sexy, kid. Don't blow my self esteem for me." Din leaned back, feeling his shoulders hit the wall of the room. "Blue could go with this suit, couldn't it? Just drape some nice blue scarves over my helmet, waggle my way in with some jingles stuck to my hips. They'd buy it, right?"

The child continued to look at him. The toy porg fell to the mat, another cruel indictment against his plan. No. No they would not.

"You got any ideas, kid?"

The child stared at him, not really here for deep tactical input. After a moment, he wriggled up onto the bed next to Din and plopped next to his hip. His hand was still tightly clutched around something. It glinted.

Din tilted his helmet, giving the kid a gentle hug, mostly holding him in place so he wouldn't slide off the bed. "What do you have there?"

The child offered it up easily enough, unfolding the three little fingers to show the crystal in his palm. It looked pretty but plain, a bright blue quartz with its ends faceted cleanly. Not carved or finished, it was a naturally shaped stone. Something about it caught the light, though, making it seem to glow. "That's nice. You find that playing with Dyrric?"

An eager, answering blat.

"Well, don't eat it." Din tilted his helmet up to regard the ceiling.

The child made a noise, as if insulted by the suggestion. Then another sound, a soft, oddly thoughtful gurgle.

"What, you think I'm overthinking it?" Din made it sound teasing, giving the kid a gentle squeeze despite himself. Then it hit him. "I _am_ overthinking it."

"_Meh_!" Eager again, encouraging his clan father.

"I can damn well walk right on in, can't I? Forget the head games, if this is a small cartel running set-up, they'd roll out a royal carpet for a Mandalorian looking for a job. Saves them a trick." Din looked down at the child, seeing him smile back. "Like they'd turn down a guy in full beskar. And… yeah…" He trailed off, thinking, grinning like a fool inside his helmet. "Oh yeah, that's an offer a Hutt could never refuse."


	5. Chapter 5

Being a Mandalorian, chosen to live among a culture of family and honor and loyalty, it wasn't supposed to be about personal value. There was a sense of pride in their work, of course, and a Mandalorian on a job meant it was a job that was getting _done_. But one didn't fluff themselves too much over it, either. Modesty and respect to the clan were the way. It was, among other and more important things, rather tacky to stroke one's own ego.

That said, the expressions on the faces of the two Gamorreans that ran up to Din as he emerged from the jungle were a hell of a thing to cherish. Mutual slack-jawed awe and horror paling the green faces as this fully-armed and armored visitor casually rolled up to the front door of their hidden fortress. They grunted and wailed to each other, not bothering with Basic as they tried to figure out who was going to tell their superiors about this, and whether they should just start shooting at him.

Din Djarin merely stood there as they frantically whipped each other up, the Amban rifle resting in his hands, and let it wash over him. These two weren't going to shoot anything. Except maybe last night's leftovers, from behind. They were gate meat, and he kept watch on the barely hidden monitoring servos lining the walls instead. Every one was focused on him. Someone else would show up very soon, someone with a few active brain cells. Probably the Ithorian. Likely the Ithorian, with smarter guards.

He was right. The Ithorian took his time coming out the door, flanked by two silent and _much_ larger Gamorreans. He could tell by their fitted, emblazoned armor that these ones had rank, usually staying close to the Hutt inside. A warning and a notice of some respect, there. Good signs. He didn't recognize the sigils on their strapped belts, but he hadn't expected to.

"Mandalorian," said the Ithorian, grunting amiably enough in his guttural language. A translator device pinned to his robe gave him an echo Din tried to ignore. He was fairly fluent in the language, but would never let on. Never knew when something like that would become useful. "Welcome to Jhas Krill. We have seen your ship at the village and been granted word of your presence, but did not expect your visit to this modest palace."

Din shrugged. "I saw an opportunity for work. Been a rough few years."

"Yes," said the Ithorian, matching his laconic explanation. "So it has been."

Silence fell, allowing them to study each other. The Ithorian would see shiny new beskar, the hard-earned weapons of a Mandalorian, a sigil of his own newly engraved onto his pauldron. Hopefully they knew nothing of the child back in the village. Din, for his part, wondered what brought an Ithorian into a Hutt's entourage. It wasn't unique for one of their kind to go bounty hunter, or spend time on the dirtier edge of the galaxy, but it _was_ fairly rare. This one wore a clean brown robe marked with intricate sigils close around his neck. He saw the edge of a holo-brand under it and realized that, like the village, the Ithorian probably wasn't all that thrilled with his current job, either.

"I am honored to serve Voontu, son of Ebin, firstborn of the last great house of Bilbousa, they who will reclaim Nal Hutta's glory," recited the Ithorian, with just enough faintly gurgling undertone for a good ear to catch that he wasn't really feeling it. Din had a _very_ good ear, and spent a long bounty hunt once with an Ithorian that could drink like a fish and told extremely literate, dirty jokes. He tried to not laugh for the servant's sake, who undoubtedly had no idea Din caught the alien's secret rebellion. "I am Fadilan, and my journey is paused here so that I may record great Voontu's legacy."

"Good to meet you, Fadilan." Din cocked his helmet. "So, is Voontu taking interviews or what does he need for a meeting?"

Fadilan paused, thrown by the Mandalorian's terse irreverence. His guards gripped their shock-sticks with a squeaking, menacing intent. "His men trace the history of your ship."

"They won't find much." He watched Fadilan take that in. One of the guards turned slightly, receiving a transmission from someone inside. "That's the point."

The Gamorrean grunted, then jostled the shoulder of the Ithorian, muttering something to him as the observation devices swung around. One broad eye twitched in dislike, but Fadilan's expression wasn't intended for Din. Or to be noticed. Fadilan lifted his head. "Voontu is impressed by your manner. He will see you."

"Great," said Din. He shouldered his rifle, nodding to the two guards that had initially met him. They still looked nervous, obviously wondering if they would be disciplined for how messily they'd handled their visitor.

One of the ranking guards stayed behind as Fadilan led the Mandalorian inside the fortress's walls, the two gate Gamorreans beginning to squeak faintly to each other. Yeah, they were about to have a rough afternoon.

. . .

The Mandalorian did his best to mentally piece together a fast map of everything he passed by on the way towards whatever was going to pass for an audience chamber. Lots of little guard nooks, most of them currently empty but mechanically auto-armed. Some droids, all of them utility, passing dutifully between operations rooms that shouldn't be between a high value target and a front door, but _he_ wasn't going to point that out. A dancer's lounge, meant to impress visitors with its rich, draping silks. He glanced in, partially because he was supposed to, partially because of honest curiosity. One blue-skinned Togruta, taking a nap in a thick bathrobe that hid everything up to her nose. Din half-smiled inside his helmet. Full respect to her.

_Everyone loves working for this Hutt_, he thought to himself, filing away the general air of dislike that came off a number of other staffers he passed by down smooth, well-kept halls. That said, there were a couple dozen people wandering around, and there had to be other guards with sense enough to keep their numbers vague.

The audience chamber was fairly impressive, though. The open space was lit by sunlight allowed in by a clear roof that looked reinforced firmly enough to take on a missile launch. The luxe couch was flanked by glinting art pieces from various cultures. A few were Hutt, of course, and oddly pretty despite the way the culture tended to favor garish simplicity.

The Hutt himself lounged alone in the sunlight, a show of power in its own way. He chose to not fear his guest, though Din had no doubt there were guards just out of sight all along the chamber's porous walls.

Voontu, further, deliberately acted as if his guest hadn't arrived yet. He continued to drink from a wide goblet, spilling none of it down a thick, sluglike chest draped with jeweled chains. Armored plates ran down his side towards the stubby tail, also bedecked with pretty, glinting gems, all of it meant to tactically show off an unusual but unavoidable realization.

As Hutts go, this one was _ripped_.

Din blinked rapidly under his helmet, honestly surprised. The natural physique of Hutts led to a general, coarse assumption about their fitness, although he'd heard tales from his clanmates about at least one Hutt that liked to do her own dirty work, slithering rapidly enough across smooth dirt or sand to scare the dung and, sometimes, the life out of her target. What they looked like and what they could actually do weren't always the same thing, and the topic was an object lesson on how to not get one's self killed by assumptions.

This Hutt, under the glitz and glamour, had arms that could choke out a bantha. Probably had. Voontu, by this display, seemed fully aware of what other species thought of Hutts and had decided he was going to turn himself into a proper insult to that attitude. Hints of trained musculature shaped his natural fat, giving him rare width and defined structure. The tail, too, lunged with martial ease through the air as he drank.

Din watched as the Hutt put the goblet down with a clank, finally turning those deep red eyes his way. The chest inhaled and exhaled as Voontu patiently took the measure of his guest. When the voice came, it lumbered out of that broad chest, basso but musically trained, in clear Basic. "A Mandalorian comes to me from the village, of his own free will. Interesting."

A _young_ voice, too. A youthful lord with plenty to prove. The Ithorian had given Din other hints that became useful now. The scion of a homeworld Hutt, out here in the limits of civilization, maybe trying to put together a real show to impress someone back where it mattered. Like a criminal version of Jerrit and his inn, doing his best with what he had.

Din thought over his play and decided to say nothing at first. He shifted his weight, equally patient.

Voontu smirked at him, eyes half-lidding in amusement. "The village is too peaceful for your tastes?"

Din shrugged. "I like to keep busy."

"And you come to offer me your talents. How can I keep you busy? More importantly, Mandalorian, your kind have history. Baggage. _Difficulties_. Mandalorians are often not meant for long-term employment, and I am a Hutt with goals. What can _you_ offer _me_?"

Smart Hutts were the most dangerous, in Din's education. He hoped like hell youth meant this one was still honing his wisdom and had some blind spots coming up, because he was starting to get nervous about his plan. He wound up his shot and took it. "Reputation. Style. An… upgrade over history, something useful for creating a legacy."

Voontu studied him, the eyes still narrowed. "Explain that, if you would."

The Hutt weaponized politeness, too. Of course Din couldn't find a dumb, stumbling Hutt out here in the rump of nowhere, half-assing himself a shaky crime ring. Of _course_ not. Din took a second to mentally bawl himself out. Could have just stayed on the Crest, waited for fuel, and got the hell out, but no. No, now he was _really_ stuck.

"All members of the Guild are aware of your illustrious predecessor. But _we_ know a truth. The Mandalorians keep a secret about Jabba Desilijic Tiure, his Eminence of Tatooine. I would never presume to cast a shadow on his legacy among your people, of course, so I say this only to you, so that we both understand."

Voontu's eyes glittered, a warning in them.

"His greatest prize among the bounty hunters that served him was no Mandalorian. Boba Fett was a pretender, a ghost of what my people are. A good hunter, of course. But just a shadow." He gave the words a trace of both real heat and dismissal. He didn't know the full story, but in another time, with a little twist of fate, Fett could have been a true foundling. He had a little sympathy there. The stories of the clones, however, and their use in the rise of the Empire still sat poorly with Din. "I _am_ a Mandalorian, one who survives. What other Hutt has kept a true Mandalorian in their service since the purge, even for a while?"

Voontu lifted his chin, considering that with regal silence. "Compelling," he said at last. "But I have your word alone that you are, as you put it, a _true_ Mandalorian. The Fett claimed his armor from the dead. Perhaps you have as well."

Din rolled the dice. He quickly unslung his rifle from his shoulder and pointed it at the floor just below the Hutt, ignoring the chaos that sprang to life behind the walls. "Then your men will have no trouble taking it from me."

Voontu held still as his guards flooded into the room, blasters hot and chains whipping through the air. Din didn't move, his hidden eyes nonetheless locked on those huge red ones.

He knew he'd won when the Hutt smiled, raising a hand before the guards finished taking position, waiting for the call to fire. "Enough. Most of you will die before he takes a scratch. This one is true." Voontu began to laugh. "I like him. Koffrith, take him on a ride!"

Koffrith was a Rodian with a warbling voice. "Sir?"

"Now!"

. . .

Din didn't let himself stagger until he got into his room, the sleepy child blinking at him from his nest of blankets. He was exhausted, but not physically. It took a _lot_ of emotional and mental energy to keep from strangling people for several hours while they bumbled through various mild to moderate criminal behaviors. At least he thought he had finally found the weak point in the operation.

Yes, they were shaking down the village. He'd gotten out of being sent on a late-night payoff tour with the logic that for the time being he made a good mole, still seen as just a new visitor waiting for a trade that would, as he'd figured, likely depend on the Hutt's largesse. Not that he would actually rat on anyone, but he was hoping to not be in Voontu's 'service' long enough for that little secret to matter.

Yes, they were logging deep in the jungle, making legitimate but still iffy money on the lumber trade by way of a cover operation. This was how they funneled the town's funds to and from Jhas Krill, keeping them on a string. The wood was good but _supposedly_ difficult to move and, according to the Hutt's lead guy on the team, required multiple parasite scans. It didn't, actually, it was another skim meant to keep the people in poverty. But the village had no way to know that. Yet.

Yes, the Hutt was also operating a hidden smuggling port out of low orbit. The amount of profit it had to be pulling in was just enough to keep him in standard Huttese luxury, and pay for the idiots that worked for him.

And yes, _that_ could be a useful weak point, once Din had it figured right. The Hutt was dangerously intelligent, but he was also stuffed full of pride he hadn't yet earned, and was cheaping out on his staff. Classic early mistakes, part of why a lot of young Hutts stayed under the tails of the home cartels until they learned some sense. But post-Empire, things had apparently gotten looser for the once-powerful syndicate, and Voontu was on his own. Small favors, Din supposed.

Some of the crew were more dangerous, like the protection squad in the lounge, and including the two ranking Gamorreans. But many more of the staff were like Fadilan, indentured or one step up, and not paid enough for any true loyalty. That meant blank spaces in the security, room for someone like him to move. Still too many hostiles for him to gunfight alone, if it came to that. But enough to give him some wiggle.

He was going to need more time to figure out how to use all of that. Hopefully, for the sake of the village and himself, not much time.

He slept, meanwhile. Deeply and well, having a job ahead of him to focus on.


	6. Chapter 6

As undercover jobs went, this one was shaping up to be no fun at all. Din stayed on the verge of growling out loud from the time he woke up and discovered a message stuck on the outside of the tinted window that informed him what time he was supposed to show up at Voontu's fortress for work, and then well into the evening. At least Dyrric was somehow managing to keep the kid under wraps. It would be a whole new world of disaster if the foundling managed to waddle his weird little butt up to the place. Din had three potential contingency plans in mind if that happened, but all of them rounded up to 'shoot a lot, grab the kid, run,' and then the details kind of tapered off from there. Since his ship still had no fuel, escape wasn't endgame.

Then there were the consequences to the village to worry about.

So it wasn't so much a set of contingency plans as it was just some stuff to keep his mind busy while the Rodian crew chief wasted his time with a bunch of pointless garbage. He spent three hours standing by and looking scary on the low-orbit platform while the guy, Koffrith, haggled over wood prices. He spent two escorting the lone Togrutan dancer down a path to a garden space she'd apparently wheedled out of the Hutt for a hobby, which, honestly, that bit was nice. The dancer was taking his employment at face value and flatly refused to talk to him, which he understood, so again he stood around looking scary while she repotted some imported succulents that were flowering quite well.

He spent one hour _not_ eating outside, given a can of nutrients and a hunk of cured meat that was probably coming out of his alleged pay, wondering if it was worth his time to bother explaining to the pair of Gamorrean punchlines that also stayed outside that he would not eat where anyone, especially a pack of gormless fools, could see him. In the end, he didn't, and mentally wished for one of Dyrric's pot pies. His stomach did the growling he wouldn't allow his mouth to utter.

It was around this point that he realized the Hutt was keeping him outside the fortress on purpose. A smart enemy wouldn't let their new, most dangerous hireling wander around the place and learn all its secrets and defenses until he felt more comfortable with the arrangement. Din swore to himself, then was thankful he hadn't pressed to get inside at any point. Maybe day two, he'd get in for a proper scouting. A little testing phase, nothing more. He doubted Voontu was that patient.

. . .

No, it wasn't day two.

The dancer had another hidden garden, and the Mandalorian also got to stand around that one like well-armed furniture. They still didn't talk, but apparently the lady had rolled some mental dice and decided she didn't like him. That was fair, but it also stung for whatever illogical reason, putting another limiter on his mood.

The Rodian cheated at Sabacc, then lied about cheating at Sabacc. They were not going to be friends.

A cold but tasty meat pasty, eaten alone in the common room of the inn in the dead of night, was little consolation.

The Hutt might be patient, but Din Djarin, in this situation, was not. His legs started to ache from the burdensome weight of doing exactly Rancor poo, and he flopped around in his sleep uncomfortably enough to wake the child, who was somehow apparently _also_ a night person. Then he decided the best place to go back to dreaming after several minutes of happy baby babble was going to be inside Din's twitching elbow.

. . .

Day three.

Dyrric's tense face before the Mandalorian left suggested he was running out of ways to keep people from noticing Din's current routine. The child also tugged at him as he geared up, wanting him to stay and play, and the look on his round, green face, was a textbook case of extremely effective guilt-tripping.

The two gate Gamorreans were no longer afraid of him, spending their time squealing cheap jokes to each other as he dutifully checked perimeter security and wrote up a (mostly accurate) log of all the flaws he found. At least _that_ would put a shock stick in their happy rumps once the actual security chief reviewed it. He also ran a set of diagnostic scans on the outside Gonks, making sure they hadn't been tampered with, or worse, gotten a sense of personal identity.

He didn't eat lunch outside again, and fought the urge to shake someone to death while screaming 'I AM NOT YOUR TECH GUY' hard enough to make his helmet vibrate when a Trandoshan asked him why the landspeeder in the garage seemed to be listing a bit to port when it went over a certain velocity. Din Djarin had no idea why _he_ got asked. It was going to haunt him. Was it because the damn thing had been chromed? Shiny vehicle, shiny armor guy, hey, maybe the shiny armor guy can fix shiny stuff?

He didn't know, but he decided he hated that Trandoshan, specifically. It gave him something to fixate on instead of how damn bored he was.

. . .

Day four. The Ithorian met him at the front of the palace with a polite bow, then, finally, while the Mandalorian tried to not sag to the ground in annoyed relief, led him inside.

. . .

This was a little more interesting. But just a little. The Hutt had another visitor, and so he had a reason to show off. Din studied the hunched, furtive looking man, not moving as he stood at attention by Voontu's side. The sight of him, Amban rifle resting easily in his hands, kept the smuggler from interrupting as Voontu kept rearranging certain details of their business together. Din mostly tuned it out. Spice smugglers were common, even today. It used to be the Hutts had most of the illicit industry on lockdown, but the Empire's fall and the Republic's attempts to clean some things up had scattered most of the old gangs.

Of course there were already new ones to replace them. Tales as old as time. Fumigate one batch of Tranthilarian heat-roaches, and a new egg-clan would move in next month. And the Hutts would try to regain control until, eventually, they did. The cartels were tenacious, and they were never fully gone.

Before the foundling, this would have mattered more to Din. Fights between syndicates meant plenty of bounty work coming in. Now he didn't know what was next, and found the smuggler's careful, diplomatic complaints to Voontu intellectually dull.

"Of course, of course," stammered the smuggler to something Din missed. The rising tone of it brought his attention back. The deal was coming to an end.

"You will transmit the terms as we have mutually decided?" It wasn't a question, and to call it mutual was also, by the look on the guy's face, a stretch.

"Naturally, great Voontu. It's an absolute pleasure to work with you." A limp, rubbery smile. "We'll have this system closed off to upstarts within months. Only we will control the spice throughout Hoth."

"Hmm." Din _felt_ the Hutt's thoughtful rumble through the soles of his boots. "Mandalorian."

"Lord Voontu." He kept it clipped and professional.

"Take Fadilan. Walk with my guest to the northern hall. Fadilan, my good friend," this was towards the smuggler again. "Will ensure that your message is sent. My Mandalorian will then escort you to your ship." _My Mandalorian_. Din's fingers wanted to tighten around the trigger of the Amban. He didn't allow it.

"Of course, great lord. It will be an honor." The smuggler beamed at Din like a fool.

"Was there anything else?"

The smuggler shook his head harder than a wet Wookie. Din watched the Ithorian arrive, as if cued. Probably had been.

"You may go." The Hutt swept his arm towards his guest, dramatic to the end of the deal.

. . .

Din marched just behind and to the left of the still nervy smuggler, mapping out this new hall in his mind and stitching it to the rest of the architecture. Lower active security, but still a number of auto-observation devices in the walls. A few panels bore tell-tale grooves that said there were hidden guard tunnels beyond, probably shortcuts the regular guards used. Din was still just a trophy, a show of strength. _Well, it's what I sold Voontu, I guess._

He focused on the way ahead instead of worrying about that right now. Dyrric had said the fortress was controlling communications in and out, as he'd guessed. Finding where those messages funneled through, that would potentially be useful when the Mandalorian had enough to make a plan.

The Ithorian stopped them at the first blast door, blinking apologetically to Din. "Here I will send our friend's message. You must wait here, Mandalorian."

Din grimaced inside his helmet. _Should have seen that coming_. All he said was, "Right." He switched on every scanner he could as Fadilan led the smuggler through the door and up to another one a few meters away, just as solid, and getting a quick glimpse of control room on the other side of that one.

He tried to burn the scant details into his mind. Imperial set-up, probably scavenged whole off an abandoned cruiser or something, along with the dual door kit. Automated systems, didn't even trust a guard in there normally. Fadilan was the comms guy, hence the holo-brand. His trust had been forced. Not difficult to operate if Din could get in there.

If.

Din eyed the blast door with deep hostility, knowing it was the same sort of junk that made Imp Destroyers such a hard nut to crack back in the day. They were blaster resistant, las-cutter resistant, explosive resistant… it was the point of the damn things. Could he get through on his own? Yeah, with a couple of months to work on it, a set of good books to read, and an industrial las-drill with a self-recharging power core.

He resisted the urge to sigh and shifted his weight, rifle still down and ready, and felt a prickle of warning strike his entire body. He glanced to his right, back up the hall towards the Hutt's audience chamber, and felt a flicker of unwelcome surprise slap him across the face.

Voontu was _right there_. The Hutt had slithered up to him without making a single noise, the gilded armor and fancy chains left aside. Those arms, bare and thickly-muscled, helping to pull him silently along the smooth halls - _that's why the floor is so well-kept in here, damn it, Djarin, you missed a trick_ \- of his small fortress.

"Lord Voontu," he said, not a hint of any tremor in his voice.

"We bore you, my poor Mandalorian. These few days with no… stimulation." Voontu smiled at him from an equal height. He could raise himself higher, but deliberately chose not to. The effect was meant to instill the opposite of equality - the sense that the Hutt was amused by lowering himself to the bounty hunter's level. It sort of worked. Din fought to not recoil. The tail flickered lazily through the air, unbothered. "My great apologies. It has been an effort to find you work that will matter."

"I do what's necessary."

"What you've done so far has been _entirely_ unnecessary, but I appreciate your… diplomacy." Voontu didn't blink. "The gardens of my lady Cosha are as lovely as she, but not fitting work for men like us."

Din said nothing. They were _nice_ flowers, and when he was a child he'd potted a couple spindly alois that had thrived on his sill in the bright months before the droids came. He'd enjoyed doing it. Honestly, he was considering getting a herb terrarium going on the Crest, the kid could use the nutrients. He didn't need every one of those carbonite bays, not these days.

"I feel I must assure you that I will need your true services soon." The Hutt continued to study him, the broad, huge face only a couple of feet from his. "Listless minds wander too far from duty, I have found."

The prickle thrummed down his spine, cold and electric. No possible way the young Hutt knew what Din had in mind. It had to be a standard bit of pressure, a game the Hutt liked to play with his hirelings. He kept his response light, on the edge of politely sardonic. "I do counting tricks. How many support posts in a room, how many Actunian geese in a flock-"

"How many guards behind the walls of my chamber." Voontu broke the tension with a laugh, an honest, easy one that caused the hall to reverb around them. Din refused to move. "I would expect nothing less of you, my Mandalorian. Have no fear."

"Your Lordship." If he'd had lunch, it would be a hot stewpot of acid chunks right now. He hadn't, so it was a lava lake in his stomach instead. He wasn't sure that was better, but his control of himself remained firm.

The hand at the end of the muscled arm was small, but its fingers grasped at Din's armored bicep with irresistible strength. "Your coming has given me such _grand_ ideas. I must thank you. And I will. Soon. Quite soon." The Hutt inclined his head. "Be patient with me."

"Of course, Lord Voontu."

"Tomorrow you may rest in the village. Watch them for me, if you like. But rest." Voontu let Din's arm go, slithering backwards. Eerily silent. He turned his head to regard the Mandalorian one more time. "In fact. Let those idiots at my gate take that fool to his ship. Go. Enjoy a pleasant evening, and a morning, too."

"Thank you, Lord Voontu." He paused before moving, looking for a play to ingratiate himself. "It won't be an insult to your guest, will it? My time is yours."

Voontu flapped his hand. "He is unimportant. He will be replaced with someone less squeamish within days. I would insult him to his face, but that is too simple. Leave him to the younger Gamorreans. Their squeals could annoy the dead."

"With pleasure," said Din, mostly meaning it, and grateful for the chance to get the hell out of there for a while.


	7. Chapter 7

The child wasn't in the common room when Din snuck back into the village, the sun almost all the way down beyond the horizon and the nighttime frost cutting into the air. Dyrric was nowhere to be seen. He hoped they were playing upstairs, but there was no sound. Not a giggle, not a squeak of that ugly toy, nothing.

Din was getting tired of that nervous prickle rippling his skin. It was not what he'd signed up for in this nice, wholesome, pleasant village, and he was about to go to bed mad. Assuming there wasn't some disaster actually waiting for him. The way things were going, there probably was.

Maybe the kids broke a window and were hiding the way kids did when they knew they'd screwed up. Maybe that was all.

He wasn't aware at first that his blaster was in hand as he picked his way up the staircase, as silent as… well, apparently, as silent as the occasional Hutt. Too close in here for the rifle. Another step. Another. Still no sound to greet him.

At the halfway point, he caught the soft hum of the heating unit inside Jerrit's slice of home. Probably he was in there, then. Dyrric likely with him. He lowered the blaster, wondering if he was being too paranoid. Or perhaps Voontu's sudden largesse meant there was a trap waiting for him. He'd run the numbers on hiring a Mandalorian and decided the Imperials had had a point in trying to destroy as many of them as they could.

No, he was probably just paranoid enough.

He reached out with his left hand, realizing with unpleasant awareness that the door to his room was cracked open. Not good. The blaster stayed in the other, ready and armed, and with a gentle push of the door, he reared back for cover as he scanned his room.

The child blatted eagerly at seeing him, both hands lifting up and waggling at him in a greeting. Unfortunately, the child was doing it from the lap of Fala Deera, who had one hand gently wrapped around his waist, and the other on a blaster of her own. Pointed at him. "Cute kid."

Din said nothing.

"Never seen anyone like him."

Silence was good. Couldn't get in trouble being quiet.

"He's been playing at the witch's hut with Jerrit's boy. You know that?"

He allowed a terse "Yeah." It was actually a no, but that wasn't the biggest worry on his mind at the moment.

"And you've been playing with a Hutt."

Din winced, hard enough to be visible. "Could you not put it like that?"

Fala arched an eyebrow at the actual pain in his voice, lowering the blaster an inch. "Dyrric is in love with you. Thinks Mandalorians are even more neat than mysterious witches all of a sudden. Does _he_ know you sold out to a Hutt?"

"He does, actually." He watched her face rear back at that, squinting in thought. "You want to put that down and we'll talk this thing over?"

Suspicion came back to her face. That was fair. "You first."

Din holstered his blaster, which she hadn't been expecting. She wavered for a moment, then put her weapon on the sidetable.

He grimaced inside his helmet. "Can you secure it? The kid is grabby, you would not _believe_ what happens on my ship."

Her distrust of him wavered back and forth for a few seconds, but in the end, she did what he asked. Din came into the room and dropped his rump onto the end of the bed, followed by the sigh he'd been holding in for at least three days.

The kid squirmed easily out of Fala's grasp and dropped to the ground, waddling over to hug his leg. He reached down and picked the kid up by the back of his robe, pulling him onto his lap, trying to not smile as the kid squeaked happily at him, ears waggling.

Fala watched the two of them, her face going through a variety of emotions, and mostly ending up on stunned confusion. "Hell is going on?"

"I followed your band to the fortress the first night I was here, figured out most of what was going on. I don't know if you know this, but it's a bad secret. Pretty sure everyone's aware of the situation, but nobody wants to make it worse for you." He watched another mix of emotions drip across her narrow face. "Dyrric told me an attempt to get a rescue message out went down hard."

He let that sit in the warmed air for a moment, then shrugged. "So I went in."

"_You're_ trying to figure out how to unseat the Hutt?" Fala's eyes had settled back on suspicion, with a heady mix of faint, wet-eyed hope. "How?"

"Working on the details." He couldn't stop sounding exhausted.

"Voontu is smart."

"Yeah." He sighed out the word. "I found that out. Control and comm room's on lockdown, his guards are junk but there's plenty of them, most of the staff hate every coil of his pudge, and the dancer has a couple of really pretty gardens about a klick out from the fortress."

"That last part's not going to do much for you."

"No, but it's a nice change of visual pace." The kid reached up to press his forehead into the cheek of Din's helmet. "How'd you catch me out?"

"Not easily. There's a pressure plate buried about a half hour out on the trail, set light. Gets a lot of false positives. It's mostly there to protect the kids, keep them from stumbling across any of Voontu's hirelings. Caught a reverb two mornings running that was a little unusual, so, I set a scout yesterday. He caught a glimpse of you." She cocked her head, amused. "Well, specifically, he told me he wasn't sure if it was a person, one of the megabirds that come in close to the village once in a while, or a ghost from the old hut, or what. But…"

"But you're smart enough to put a few things together."

"You're a Mandalorian. I'm what passes for security around here. It was a guess, but I figured it was a good one."

He nodded. "Fair enough. Your sister in the loop?"

The look on Fala's face was enough answer. They had each other's back in all things.

"Okay." He looked away, respecting that. "You should know. Voontu's working on a score, don't know the details yet. Wants me rested."

"If it's because he's got someone like you at his side, whatever it is, it's not going to be good. His ambition's only grown since he dug in."

"How long?"

"Three years. We might have pushed him out at first, but…" She trailed off. "We had so little, and couldn't spare the fight. He's a showman. It earned him enough to build that place. It's all salvage, you probably figured that out, but he put a real good shell on it. Some of his people are like you. They came through, then, they stayed."

"And not always because they wanted to." He cocked the helmet, thinking. "Know the Ithorian's story?"

"Fadilan?" She scoffed a little laugh, hiding real sorrow under it. "That poor bastard. He wanted to set up a multi-colony education facility. That smuggling platform cloaked in low orbit? He was hauling what became its base, was going to set up a bunch of ship parts and make a real station out of it. He loves kids. Dyrric was so upset when he 'disappeared' that he ended up in the med tank."

"Saw you fighting with him."

"Sure. Saves his rump, looks good for everyone, and the frustration we have with each other is real. But there's not much Fadilan can do for us out there. He gets a few new edu pads in with the shipments, for Mo's sake." She glanced up into the blackness that hid his eyes. "When we saw the kid with you, the plan was to try to get you some fuel as fast as possible, get you back offworld without the Hutt knowing anything until you were gone." She shook her head. "Damn."

"I appreciate that." He made sure she could hear it in his voice. "Not your fault. I've just got a real nose for trouble." He tapped the kid's forehead with a gentle finger. "Him, too. We found this batch of it all on our own." He looked up at her, remembering. "Is the witch's hut actually dangerous?"

She laughed. "Only if you're scared of ghost stories and superstition. Nothing strange has happened there since we laid foundation. Jerrit is just a worrier. I understand how he feels, though. I really do."

More clues about a story he told himself he didn't need or want to know. The tug of sympathy for the innkeeper grew stronger anyway. "He's a good man."

"He very much is. He's the heart of this place. Mo's the brain, keeping us comfortable with what Voontu gives us."

"And you're the shield."

"For all the fat good _that's_ doing." There was an audible crack inside her over that. The sound of failure echoing in her voice.

"And it's your best." Din leaned forward, towards her. "You prioritized the real task. Keeping the kids safe, keeping everyone out of the Hutt's reach as much as possible. With what you have, you're doing the most anyone could expect. That's why I said _shield_." He leaned back, resettling the kid on his lap. "You've given me a few more pieces to work with. I still don't have a plan. But I will."

Fala Deera studied him for a while in silence, occasionally turning her attention to the child wiggling on his lap, starting to fuss in a toddler's noisy sleepiness. She was still looking into the big, earnest eyes of the foundling when she spoke, sounding reluctant but also genuine. "Whatever it is, I'm in."

"You trust me already?"

"No." Fala gave him a wry smile. "But I can play the odds, and you're the best we've had in a while. And the kid." She nodded at him, getting a return coo. "Sometimes the smart move is to trust an instinct. Mine says that kid adores you. So does Dyrric, and he's learning how to be a good judge of character from his dad." A brief narrowing of her eyes. "You said he knew you were bargaining with the Hutt. He's not in danger?"

"Lady, I am trying my absolute _best_ to keep him out of this. He's a confidant and babysitter, I keep hoping that'll keep him occupied enough."

"All right," she said, satisfied. She got up from her chair, looming over him with that same wry smile. "Whatever you come up with, whatever you think my team can do for you, cut us in. We'll do anything to get this place back on its own feet."

. . .

The next day was as peaceful and full of good, hot food as Din Djarin could have hoped for. He caught a few careful nods in the inn's common room that evening, however. Fala's people, throwing their fates and possibly lives in with his. No pressure.

He still didn't have a plan.

. . .

Fadilan met him once again, looking both nervous and weary, and his eyes rarely tried to meet Din's helmeted ones. The Gamorreans with him, the smart ones, they too were unusually subdued, and there were no signs of the dumb pair at all. He didn't like that. It meant something was out of routine, something new enough that it was causing real discontent even among the loyal members of the Hutt's crew.

It meant whatever Voontu had in mind, it was going to be big, showy, and dangerous. Especially for himself.

He nodded to the Ithorian with the same clinical silence he always showed, a part of him wanting to tell Fadilan it would be all right. He couldn't actually promise that yet, but now he saw a little more of what Fala Deera saw. A forlorn, soul-weary scholar who'd only wanted to help. He wished he could promise the poor figure a better day to come. All he could do for now was keep looking for a way to make it happen.

Legend said the New Republic's top general had personally choked out the infamous Hutt, Jabba, with nothing more in her hands than a gold chain and some silks. _Goals_, thought Din, grimly following the Ithorian. He knew little else about the general, nor did he care much for politics before or after the Empire, but he admired a good kill. And right now, he _really_ admired a proper Hutt kill.

The helmet kept his thoughts of happy murder secret as he was deposited in front of the lounging Voontu. Today the Hutt's focus was only on him, watching the Mandalorian arrive with greedy intensity. No drink at hand, or luxury snacks. There was a silken blanket draped over part of his tail, trimmed with some lush, white fur that had to be hell to keep pristine. An attempt to look royal, the Hutt's upper body held in rigidly fine posture, one of those powerful hands laying with faux relaxation along the chaise's gilded arms.

Another bad sign. Silence flooded the audience chamber, adding an almost choking sensation of import.

Din couldn't take it anymore. "Your Lordship," he said.

"Mandalorian. A fine morning it is. I hope your rest was fulfilling."

"It was nice. The innkeeper's boy is a great cook," he said blandly.

"So I have heard." A low, rumbling chuckle. "When he is older, perhaps I will bring him into my service. Perhaps even sponsor him among the great houses."

Din said nothing, but a dozen cartoonishly gory scenarios of death and destruction flickered through his imagination, one of them ending with shoving a thermal detonator painted like a bright red fruit down Voontu's throat. That one was his favorite. "It's a thought," he said instead.

"How right you are, my Mandalorian. This is unimportant to our business today, if a pleasurable future diversion." Voontu lifted his hand, dismissing his own wisp of small talk. The amusement stayed in his voice. "My people are a great help to me in establishing this small house. I cannot yet claim my own clan, nor establish a name of my own, but nonetheless, my influence grows. With you here, I am granted a weapon. A surprise that is thus far unknown to my enemies, and to my competition. And more."

Din studied the Hutt as he talked, haughtiness sharpening his voice.

"I am sure as a bounty hunter you are well aware of what has become of beloved Nal Hutta. We thrived under the Empire, for they did not care what happened amidst their shadows. But the Republic believes in a childish form of justice that chokes out the _freedom_ of those like us." Voontu sniffed. "The politics of both do not interest me. Only the places where we may reclaim what ought be ours. We must rebuild, and to do that, we must shore up what is most useful, and trim away the feeble."

A crawling sense of danger began to trickle along Din's arms._ It's a hit. Of course it is. It's going to be a hit on a high value target_.

"I have a younger brother, Mandalorian. He is a good child, but he is weak. He does not have the… enthusiasm necessary to empower our family name. And yet. _And_ _yet_. He is the _favorite_." The tail began to thrash, belaying the control in Voontu's voice. "My family has grown _mild_ under the Republic, seeking other ways to serve. Their riches earned softly, as merchants to witless Republic governors!"

_But they're still rich?_ Confusion began to seep in. _Rich without the chance of being arrested every few minutes? Am I missing something here?_

Voontu looked away, irritated. "I was raised by my uncle, a great Tiure himself. _He_ knew what Hutts are. What we could be again. I was little more than a child when our cartels were scattered by a faction of empowered Rebels, and then I watched him go to trial and give away nothing that would harm another of our clan! A true Hutt! And when I came home, my family _apologized_ to me! A mistake, they claimed! That I had been shown the end of an era when I ought to have learned this _softness_ instead!"

Din stared, feeling strangely blank. Voontu continued to amp himself up over the family's perceived slights, his skin rippling as his words became a rant. "I tried to explain to them that I had been shown the way! To revive what had once been! To bring us back into power the way our ancestors had, to earn what we held by our cleverness and our own code!"

The last was roared, echoing off the walls of the chamber. Afterward, the Hutt's ragged breaths tortured the new quiet. "Yesterday, I invited my brother to Jhas Krill. I gave him the word of truce, and promised him safety. No servant of mine shall harm him."

_Here it is_. Din followed up the thought with a florid curse.

"But a Mandalorian, truly, is no one's servant. I call you _mine_, it is intended as affection and not an insult. It is the way I was taught. I do not own you, but I respect what you are. And now I believe I may trust you." Voontu leaned towards him, eager. "_You_ will kill my brother. You will warn my family that I will not allow their 'mercy' to shape our people's future.

"You will help me usher in that new era we deserve, Mandalorian. Tomorrow. So quickly things will change." The Hutt smiled, calm again, slumping back. The arm lifted again, lazy and indulgent. "I thank you for coming so early. My men will guide you through our halls today, show you where my brother might rest, what delights of mine he may find pleasurable. Choose your perch, your manner of hunt. Then return to the village, Mandalorian, and ready yourself for a kill worthy of both of our legacies."

A flick of that mighty hand, and Din Djarin was dismissed.


	8. Chapter 8

Din slipped back into the village with his usual trained silence. Once he felt certain that he was well out of sight of any of Voontu's spies, he caught himself doing the thing where he was absolutely _not_ running in a worried frenzy towards Mo Deera's home and town hall, but was instead tromping with a controlled, militant steadiness. Quickly, to be sure. His shoulders were squared back and his helmet was held high in what Greef Karga had once merrily described to him as 'the murder strut.'

It was, yes. Sure as hell the Mandalorian was gonna kill _someone_ before all this was over. But first, Fala Deera had proven to him that she had a right to know what was about to go down. Further, an idea was starting to come together, and it required the help she'd offered. It was a hurried plan, not as clean as he would like, and it had variables he couldn't completely account for, but now he was on a fixed schedule.

Din didn't like to work in a crunch, but he had to admit it had a way of bringing his mind into crystalline focus. He nodded to Dyrric, standing on the porch of the inn with the strange foundling holding his hand, his own thoughts still full of fragments of possible plans. He didn't have time to catch the look of worry on the young boy's face, nor the way their heads turned to watch him go by.

There was a man doing his best to not look like a guard not far from the Deera home. He straightened up in a hurry as the Mandalorian approached, his mouth opening to ask the obvious, but the way Din was marching spoke for him. The mouth snapped shut again and the human went to get the door ahead of the Mandalorian's arrival. "Fala!"

He saw the shadowed outline of her rising from a chair inside the home, making it inside before Mo came all the way down the staircase. He kept his focus on Fala. "It's a hit. Voontu wants to corrupt and consolidate power within his family."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

Fala swore, her hands balling onto her hips. She looked at her sister, their faces paling at the implications an empowered, bloodied Hutt would have for their village.

"He's decided to trust me. I know the layout now, I've got all the choke points and guard patrols mapped." He waited for Fala's attention to come back to him and began to speak quickly. "Voontu is completely focused on the the idea of building a new legacy for himself. You were right, he escalated his plans the moment I came on board. But it's also narrowed his view, and the guards are thrown off by their boss's obsession. If we want to dig him out, this is the time to do it."

Doubt darkened Fala's face despite his efforts to keep her focus on him.

"I'm not going to take the hit, obviously. But if we don't clear the Hutt out while we've got the opportunity, sooner or later, and probably sooner, someone else _will_ take my place."

Mo seemed to feed on her sister's worry. "If whatever you have in mind doesn't work-"

"Then Witchmoat is doomed." The Mandalorian said it in as cold and flat a voice as he could manage, keeping their eyes on him, forcing them to stay centered. "But it was heading for doomed anyway. Right now, we can still fight."

Fala jutted her chin at him, convinced. "What's your plan? Finally got one?"

"I'm supposed to be on site early, finalizing where I'm going to take my shot. Voontu's brother is arriving in the later morning. If this were a real job for me, I wouldn't move until sometime afternoon at the earliest. I'd want him feeling safe. The longer he, and whatever guards or staff he has, gets to relax and look at Voontu's pretty dancer, the cleaner my shot would be. That's exactly how I'm going to play the set-up. Now. That's when I need a distraction. Mid to late afternoon. Fala, you, your crew. You attack the fortress."

Mo jerked forward, horrified. "_What?_"

Din lifted an armored hand, keeping it close to him so it didn't seem like he was trying to condescend to her. It seemed to work. Fala laid a hand on her sister's forearm, still listening to him talk. "It's a risky play, but it'll set off a reaction inside the fortress. Chaos can be useful. Your strike doesn't have to succeed, keep yourselves alive. All I need is a _lot_ of loud noise, enough to pull focus to the front gates. That'll give me room to move. While everyone's busy, I'll grab Fadilan and get to the comms room."

"That's still a firefight." Fala didn't sound frightened. Tactically calm. Thinking through the angles. That was good. He could work with that. "Even if the goal isn't to take over the fortress, that's a lot of blaster fire in the air."

He couldn't help sounding grimly pleased at the mental picture. "Lady, at this point, I'm hoping for it. I assure you, I'll be adding plenty of my own inside. Not every guard's going to make it to defense positions, and since what I actually did, instead of pick out a snipe nest, is found where I can block off multiple control points, you're going to get the fun of personally taking out at least some of the guys shaking down your town."

"That's fun?" asked Mo, still looking a little horrified.

Fala's expression suggested that yes, yes it could be. "Fadilan's non-combat. He's no coward, but he knows when he's underfoot. He'll probably take cover."

"Yeah. He's got a room not too far from the comm. Saw it on my tour today." He grinned inside his helmet. "And _his_ door's not blast-reinforced."

Hope began to creep onto Fala Deera's face. "Once you're in the comms, what's your play?"

"The Republic's got an emergency channel operating throughout a lot of territory. Supposed to be for internal comms only." He didn't explain that he knew this for deeply illegal reasons, the most recent one involving a prison break. "And they re-established Echo Base as a major checkpoint a couple years back. It's manned at all times. They'll have an emergency X-Wing squad on deck. It'll get here fast."

Fala grimaced. "All this would have been a lot easier if they'd spread out patrols from there. Seen us flailing out here on our own."

Din didn't say anything to that. Wasn't anything _to_ say. Sometimes people needed to get some rightful bitterness out of their system. That the Republic was still half a mess, in his opinion, wasn't a useful defense. That thousands of pilots had been lost fighting Imps, that the next era of cadets were being scraped from still-exhausted worlds, that a lot of bases were operating with skeleton crews just so that the Republic could say they were there. That there were so many places where people like him were slipping through the net, and probably would for the next couple of decades. The times after a war were always tough. He understood. It didn't make it easier on the people. Had to let off steam however you could.

Fala shook off her own irritation. "They're going to pitch a fit if you cut into their line."

"That's what I'm going for. Then all you have to do is hold on until they get here."

She thought his plan through for a while. No doubt she saw the same flaws he knew about. The same variables. If the fortress simply went into lockdown instead of reacting to the strike, if Fadilan wasn't accessible, if Voontu changed any part of the schedule beforehand. If the Republic peacekeepers didn't come. If, if, if.

The wrong 'if' could kill a guy. Din didn't focus on it too much. You did what you could with what you had. The rest, well. Improvisation was a core skill.

Mo spoke up, almost startling him. She'd been eerily silent since her sister had decided she was all the way in. "We've got fuel for you. Pulled it out of a few volunteered vap-haulers, and if this works, we'll get plenty to replace our stores once we start reclaiming the fortress. Can get you and your child off world before the Republic notices you're involved."

Din went quiet again, wondering how to take that, wondering why it felt acutely aware.

She smiled, softening the incisive effect. "Look. You're riding a pre-Imperial gunship. I saw a few on Corellia when I was a kid. Very few. They were _all_ kitted with what I'd politely call aftermarket parts. And you're a Mandalorian who picked our village to land in. You're not looking for attention."

"It's not what you think."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter what I think, doesn't matter what it actually is. For what it's worth, I believe you. My point is, Fala told me you went out of your way to help us. We didn't ask you to. You found out on your own. Tomorrow we find out if it all works out. If it does, the least we can do is what you came for, and see you off as the private traveler you showed up as. We owe our visitors that much hospitality."

He let that sit for a moment, debating with himself on if he should say anything. "Not quite accurate."

She arched an eyebrow at him.

"Dyrric asked me to help. I _did_ find out about Voontu on my own, but when Dyrric found out that I had, well. Couldn't turn the kid down."

A smile crept onto Mo Deera's face, a small and sad one. He hated the sight of it, hated the way it tugged and hurt.

He didn't need to know. It didn't matter. There was no useful reason to ask the question. It came out of his mouth anyway. "What happened to his mother?"

"Same thing that happened to a lot of people during the war."

"She was a chef, wasn't she? On Corellia."

Reluctance crept into her voice, tuning it low. Mo looked away as she answered. "Amari and Jerrit were operating a place in Coronet City, not far from the shipyards. Had for years, since before they were married. They took care of a lot of people coming to tour the latest Star Destroyer or whatever major project was going on."

"Big names."

"Yeah. And staff are invisible to the elite. I'm sure you know how it is. Amari passed on some things she overheard to an old friend. She got away with it for a while, too. ISB finally got wind of where the leak was, came in for a private dinner one night. They wouldn't buy the cover story, that it was just talk between friends. She knew her friend was a Rebel. They had proof. And his corpse." Mo still didn't look at the Mandalorian. "Jerrit was passed over, along with Dyrric. She'd kept them out of the loop on purpose, and _that_ gambit held. At least that much. He signed on to our colony project the week he found her name on a list the Rebels uncovered when they retook our planet."

He guessed. It wasn't a difficult one. "Prison deaths."

His answer was a slow nod. She still didn't look at him. Din let the silence linger, a way of honoring the past. The ones that had gone before. Deep respect overtook him. When faced with a choice, Jerrit's wife had done what she knew was the right thing, and kept her family, her child safe doing it.

Mandalorians, the clan that raised him, scattered throughout the galaxy all over again. Having done the right thing, knowing full well what it could cost. It was the Way.

He buried the growl, the emotions it was trying to reveal. "This is going to work," he said instead. "I promise."

Mo Deera lifted her head at last, looking at him for a while in that same contemplative silence. Finally she spoke, loaded with the weight of some personal verdict. "I believe you."

. . .

Dyrric waited until the Mandalorian had gone upstairs to rest before he really got to thinking. The child was still patting around the common room, filled to the brim with noisy toddler energy because he'd finally gotten a couple of hours of attention from the armored man. Dyrric supposed 'father and son' was actually the right term for their relationship, but the awkward standoffishness the Mandalorian kept trying to show was confusing the issue.

Not for the kid, at least. He was blatting in delight, but at least he was also messily doing what the older boy had asked and was pulling the (unbreakable, thankfully) wooden trays from some of the tables over to the cleaning racks. Dyrric wished the kid could actually speak. He wanted someone to talk to right now, but nobody else, and _especially_ not an adult, was going to listen to him. Or understand.

Mostly they'd just be mad that he had been eavesdropping on the big discussion at the Deera home. He couldn't believe it! The Mandalorian was _really_ going to do it, get rid of the bad guys!

"I just want to help," Dyrric said to the child, grimacing at how limp it sounded aloud. "I know I'm just a kid, but…" Oh, that was worse. "I sort of helped start this, you know? I feel like I have some responsibility here."

There. _That_ was a big kid word. Responsibility. It was close to how he felt, too, excited and scared and as if part of this was on him, somehow. A little better. The green kid blinked up at him with those huge, limpid eyes, his ears wiggling. He'd stopped running around the room when Dyrric talked. Maybe he couldn't talk back, but at least he seemed like a good listener. Dyrric smiled down into those eyes, feeling self-conscious.

Dyrric then frowned a moment later, still thinking. "They need to set up a distraction to help your… the Mandalorian. Just a lot of noise, he said. Nobody's supposed to get hurt except the bad guys, right?"

One broad ear lifted higher than the other, a sort of curious shrug.

"And what's noisier than a screaming kid? Plus it'll pull attention off Fala Deera. Just maybe add a few more minutes for them to hold off the Hutt's goons." Dyrric perked up, thinking about what it would look like, a hero doing his part to help the resistance.

And not at all about his odds of getting shot up instantly.

The broad ear lowered, and then they both went back. A look of worry creased the soft green features. The child didn't think in full words, but he did think in concepts, and while violence wasn't a huge part of these thoughts, his expression suggested _he_ was more than a little concerned about Dyrric's add-on plan.

Dyrric, staring off into space, didn't catch the child's look of worry and warning at all. "Yeah… All I gotta do is be careful. I don't want _anyone_ to get hurt."

The child pawed at his leg, trying to get his attention. Dyrric, still lost in his showdown fantasy, reached down and took his little hand in his. "It'll be fine. You just stay here and we'll bring your dad back safe and the Hutt'll be gone, and it'll be the best day _ever_."


	9. Chapter 9

Din Djarin didn't get nervous before an op, not anymore. He did in his earliest bounty hunts, although even then he had his training to keep his spine stiff and his aim steady. Once he'd had enough success and reputation under his belt, nervousness became a useless reaction. Something unwanted to distract his mind. He funneled that energy into a fanatic devotion to detail instead, timing his moves and ensuring he had as wide a scan of the situation he was in as possible. It became a tactical benefit, a clarity of awareness that made his enemies think he was impossibly ghostlike, a genuine danger on the opposite end of the field.

In the interests of full disclosure, sometimes he had a _lot_ of that energy at his disposal. Today was one of those days. From the moment he passed through the front gate of Voontu's fortress, everything around him seemed hard-lined and in perfect focus. His mind collected what people said around him as if he were transcribing it, no matter how small the verbal detail.

Voontu's brother would be welcomed into the palace within the hour. Worrex, son of Ebin, second-born and chosen heir of the last great house of Bilbousa, they who wish to remake Nal Hutta as a great world of merchants and makers. He was a jeweler by craft. His assistant, a prim and sharp-eyed Twi'lek man who arrived overnight to arrange the visit's final details, claimed to Voontu that Worrex had privately suggested and then personally finished a few last flourishes to the royal wedding band of General Organa herself. He'd kept it quiet, assuming it was true, out of respect for the General's previous encounter with the related Hutt clan.

Din, his turn to be hidden behind those porous walls, found himself amused to hear the name come up, and entertained himself with the idea of the 'wrong' Hutt going down today. Voontu looked much less impressed with the tale, although he graciously accepted the gift the factor had brought with him - a hand-wrought golden chain holding a single great red stone. It was faceted so perfectly it still looked almost spherical, yet its carving made it seem to constantly glow as it caught and trapped the light. It was a damn nice piece, he thought.

Meanwhile he traced the changing patterns of the guards, and kept watch on Fadilan. The Ithorian was having a busy day himself, accompanying the factor and passing to and fro the comms room to ensure today's incoming ships were on schedule. The two big Gamorreans stayed with him throughout, which could become a hassle later, but not an insurmountable one. Wouldn't be the first time Din Djarin shot up their kind for getting in his way, wouldn't be the last.

Time passed, both too slowly and too quickly. There was no thought of lunch for the Mandalorian today, his body was focused on the job and needed nothing but busy hands and a fast mind. The guards thought he'd selected a certain hollow place behind the walls because it hid a quick, potentially dangerous entry to their guest's room, not far from the audience chamber. In truth, he ensconced himself there only to watch Worrex arrive, chatting with his Twi'lek employee about how pretty the dancer's gardens were, and finding he immediately sort of liked the new Hutt. Afterward, he moved to his other hiding place - a blind corner that he could collapse and entirely cut off a whole sector of the fortress. He toyed with a handful of detonator charges while he waited, listening as patrols went by.

And he waited, patiently now.

. . .

The two unreliable, easily excitable Gamorreans the Mandalorian disliked so much, Dragh and Murg, were asleep at their post outside Voontu's fortress. They were supposed to take turns sleeping through their long midday shift, but that had lasted about an hour as the sunny heat sapped their energy, already drained from being up half the night doing odd jobs to prepare for the big visit. Besides, everyone was safely locked up inside, and that snotty Mando the boss had just hired was probably enough to scare off anything that might show up all by himself.

So they slept well past noon, hard enough that the first crack of blaster fire didn't stir either of them all the way. Dragh cracked open an eye to see if a tree was about to crash into the missile shield that arced haphazardly over the crucial parts of the fortress, saw nothing, and closed that eye again.

The second shot turned part of the blast-resistant fortification Murg was leaning on red hot, and he yowled himself all the way awake and into a shaky adrenaline rush. He grabbed his rifle and began firing back indiscriminately as Dragh stirred from the other fortification, grunting angrily at him for answers about what the hell he was doing.

A barrage of shots from somewhere in the jungle settled the question. Murg screeched, a cauterized wound appearing on his bicep and he dropped into cover. Dragh began to slam on the emergency keys behind his fortification, all of them, instigating a full alert within the fortress. Dragh, made of courage, then curled into a ball behind his shield to wait for backup.

Whatever silliness was going on, he wasn't going to make it his problem.

. . .

Worrex glanced up at the sound of the klaxons ricocheting throughout the narrow halls of the palace with a wince. He had chosen the martial art of manners from a young age and had forcefully kept himself from making any remark about the way the inside of the fortress was built from slipshod scraps and how it amplified every godsawful noise. Like a rancor fart in a mining shaft. This was getting to be a bit much, and _why_ in the name of Hutta would there be an attack on his brother's sedate logging facility? Father had been so proud that Voontu was making an attempt to create something for himself that didn't involve violence. "Do the lumberjacks grow restless, brother Voontu?" he asked blandly, trying to not make a thing out of it and probably failing. Well, he _was_ still young.

Voontu growled, his red eyes narrowing. "The village," he snapped, as if that answered something.

"They work well for you, you suggested at lunch. A mistake, perhaps, or some disaster at the mills?"

Voontu snapped a look his way, hot and angry. "My men would not set off such alarms for a _mistake_, little brother."

Worrex inclined his head low, deferring to his elder kin. His hands, surprisingly long and nimble for a Hutt, worked together in discomfort. He too was in fair shape, but he would credit his efforts more to a fondness for slithering around the Bilbousan port regularly for new ores and jewels. "Of course, of course."

Voontu turned to one of those two hulking Gamorreans he kept close - well, it was _something_ of a tradition, Worrex had reluctantly decided - and barked a series of orders Worrex didn't entirely catch after one of them muttered something to him. They did not seem kind. So it _was_ an attack.

His fears were confirmed a moment later. Suddenly contrite and eerily friendly, Voontu turned back to him. "My apologies, little brother. There does seem to be some issue outside. We will enter lockdown. Would you please return to your quarters? I must keep you safe. For the family."

Worrex smiled amiably enough, smelling a Kowakian rat. But the word of truce between kin was inviolable. If something was amiss, it _probably_ wasn't over his visit.

Probably.

He glanced at his assistant as the two Gamorreans stormed off, his old friend, the elder Twi'lek Nari, and saw the ghost of real suspicion on his face. Well, that was the man's job, wasn't it? To be his paranoia, his advance guard. They would be careful.

Meanwhile, it would harm nothing to nip off to his private lounge, waiting to see what happened.

. . .

Din Djarin waited until the younger Hutt had sealed himself in the guest hall, then quickly moved to his secondary roost. The Hutt didn't need to be any part of this, in his reckoning. The second wave of guards would be called for within the next few minutes. He waited for the call to come over the internal comm system, waited for the shadow of some broad Trandoshan figure down the narrow, fragile halls the guard contingent lurked in, and then set off the detonators he'd placed that morning.

Screams and the ear-splitting sunder of metal told him it was a good blast. He didn't wait around to double-check, putting himself on Fadilan's trail as shouts of confusion began to fill other corridors nearby.

"_Where is my Mandalorian?!_" The scream echoed over the internal comm, making him wince as the feedback screeched along the walls. Fury and desperation were clear in Voontu's voice, and that was a nice sound. "_Get to the defensive line! Other orders rescinded!_"

_That's going to have to be a no._ Din didn't realize he was grinning to himself, the chaos within the fortress becoming fully grown, swinging around a corner knowing full well one of the two bulky Gamorreans was there, and cold-cocking the guy straight into sunset.

The other squealed a curse at him as Fadilan's door slammed shut of its own accord. The curse was cut off as the Mandalorian shot him high above the eye with his blaster, instantly cooking him straight out of existence.

He waited to see if there was going to be some sort of followup, a secondary set of guards, the other one waking up too quickly. Nothing. "Fadilan?" he called through the thick door. "We got a job to do. I think you'll appreciate it."

"I will be no part of whatever murder that Hutt demands of you, Mandalorian!" It was muffled by door and heavy, frightened breathing both.

"Me, either. So let's break up his party, instead."

Silence.

"Fala Deera told me the score. The village is shooting up the front so we can get a message out without Voontu stopping us." He kept himself from flowing into an easy threat to the Ithorian - _you can help me by choice, or I'll make the choice for you_. A reflex, not always the most useful one. He went for cheerful friendliness instead. "You in?"

The door began to scrape open.

. . .

Worrex looked up at the sound of his brother's voice over the comms. "A Mandalorian? Nari, were you aware of a Mandalorian's presence when you arrived?"

"No, young lord." Nari stayed at the door of the lounge, a shock-rifle kept down and ready. "I apologize that I have missed such a detail."

"Your apology is refused as unnecessary. This was a secret, and for reason." Worrex lifted his chin, thinking quickly. "You were right this time, Nari. I'm afraid you were right. We should have brought a full security entourage."

"It gives me no pleasure for my distrust to be validated in this way, young lord."

"Well, it _was_ once all fair among Hutt families." Worrex hoisted himself up off the lounge, slithering across the gilt room with a quickness similar to his brother. "And I did not tell him my good old friend was once a proper warrior himself."

"Lord?" Nari looked at him, quickly and with concern.

Worrex waved it off, still thinking. "Nothing of that. The attack outside has nothing to do with us but timing, Nari. If I ask it of you, would you go help them?"

Nari blinked rapidly, sputtering. "My lord - if a Mandalorian-"

"The mercenary sounds too busy to serve my brother's command." He frowned. "There is much here I do not know, but I think we're not in current danger."

"You'd have us put ourselves _into_ it?"

"For my family's good name, yes. I want to know what my brother has done. _I_ am now responsible for our legacy, not him, and I will see whatever mess he's caused resolved."

There was a reluctant pause. "I am your loyal servant."

"And a friend. Always. Go, assess the front gates. And if you can help, please do so. I will remain in cover, meanwhile."

. . .

Fala Deera chucked one of her preciously rare flash grenades at the gate defenses, blinding them long enough for her men to take a couple free shots at the guards trying to reclaim the towers. Not being a fool, she'd gotten those locked down first. This might be just a distraction, but she was going to make it a professional one, and she was going to make it _count_.

Fifteen of Voontu's men down so far. She gritted her teeth, satisfied in a bitter and hungry way. The Mandalorian suggested she'd get her fun, and she supposed it indeed was fun, after a fashion.

Mostly it was about releasing the rage she'd been sitting on for years. The money the village could have put towards the children's education, and the Hutt had brought in a damn _skiff_ the first month his crew had shaken them down. She took a shot, cutting down a man trying to look suave with dual blasters.

The lumber mills they'd built, knowing the jungle loam could support a healthy, harmless cycle of regrowth and good, strong wood, claimed by Voontu's shifty Rodian and all its profits skimmed. She took another shot, wishing it had _been_ that Rodian. But no, she wasn't that lucky.

The fear she felt every time another ship showed up, carrying a bounty hunter, a dancing slave, a killer, a smuggler, a scam artist. That poor damn Ithorian, who they couldn't save from servitude. She lobbed another grenade, a thermite round, and watched the already damaged tower begin to creak threateningly.

Revenge was something to be cautious about. Fala understood. Carrying it could cut one's own hands apart just as easily. But, she thought, there was also justice to this. Fighting to reclaim what should be _theirs_ \- this peaceful, beautiful jungle they'd tried to befriend and tame on its terms.

The Hutt had simply swept in to take it from them.

She didn't realize she had screamed in fury, lobbing another grenade she could barely afford to risk, until the tower began to fall in earnest. Then she began to laugh, ducking behind her makeshift shield. It choked off in her throat as she heard another sound, rising in a sharp approach, recognizing it instantly, hoping to the stars above that it was a mistake.

A child's screams of makeshift bravery.

"No," she rasped. "No, no, no…" She jolted out of cover, barely seeing the figure start to break out of the jungle line. She flapped frantically at the sniper closest to the line. "Haku, it's Dyrric!"

The old man squinted at her, not hearing. She pointed, ignoring a whizzing shot, sweat beginning to drench her back in instant fear. "Dyrric!" she screamed instead, fear coming into her voice. "Behind you!"

Haku's sniper rifle lowered as he realized what she was saying. He took a scraping shot to his hand for his brief lack of attention, nothing fatal, but enough to topple him backwards in shock.

She screamed again as Dyrric saw it happen and then ran to the old man. By dumb child's luck, it put him in cover. Partial, anyway, as he pressed his child's body over the old man's shrunken one, putting pressure on the wound. Smart move, but…

What was he _doing_ here? Fala Deera swept the battlefield, putting together a new plan. They needed to cut off enemy fire as best as they could. _They_ could take the shots, the risk of death, but what if Dyrric had brought other children with him? The sweat turned cold, dripping down her back.

They needed to try to make a real push. Shove the Hutt's guards back, and scatter them. Absorb all the fire they could. Like a shield.

. . .

Din Djarin shot two surprised guards high through the chest before either of them could raise their rifles. Fadilan continued to breathe in raspy horror behind him as the Mandalorian continued to press towards the comm and control room. It wasn't a long march between Fadilan's room and the lockdown, no, but a bit of luck had failed him and a number of guards had decided to use the hall before the comms as a staging area before heading towards the ever-rising noises of combat.

Four more came around the corner at him. They died, too. And another two. And one, who saved his small, human life by instantly dropping the blaster in his hands once he saw the Mandalorian. "I hate this job anyway. The pay is garbage."

"Run, then," said Din, grating his words for full effect.

The guy did, and to his credit, he didn't try a single stupid thing on his way past. That left them with the mute pair of salvaged blast doors.

"The doors require a security override protocol in a full lockdown," said Fadilan, still nervous. "Code-string. For each door."

"How long does that take?"

"A few minutes."

"Be more specific, Fadilan. _Please_. I don't want to waste ammo or get caught in a reload."

"Three minutes, first door. Two, second." He paused. "There is a droideka laser inside."

"A _droideka_?" Instant hostility made him see red.

"Its laser, only. It is rigged to the ceiling, makeshift. If it sees me, it will be fine. When it sees another during lockdown, it will fire. You will want to destroy it when the door opens."

_Will I ever_. He didn't say it out loud. He grunted instead. "Thanks for the warning."

"Yes. Of course." Fadilan got to work.

Din pinched himself in scant cover by the corner, and waited for the next klaxon blare.

This one was automated. "_CONTROL ROOM ENTRY ATTEMPT. CONTROL ROOM ENTRY ATTEMPT._"

Well, at least it was going to peel off some more fighters from the front gate. He checked his blaster, and got ready to shoot all incoming.

. . .

Voontu smacked at the back of one his guards, the full power of his musculature behind it. The human staggered. "Take a squad, find out what's happening at the control room. Kill it, if necessary. If this situation crawls further from our hands, I will be most upset."

The human nodded and got to work. Voontu peered around the reinforced corner, seeing for himself flecks of the tiny rebellion afire outside his gates. The woman, Fala. Her men, most of whom were old and foolish. One of his towers was down, that was negligible. A little effort and they could retake the other. And when he had this stamped down, he would arrange far more deadly fortifications. Perhaps he had been too kind.

He ripped one of the bulkier las-rifles from one of his guards, feeling it tink against the plated armor protecting his most vital coils. Sometimes one had to make a little personal effort to make sure a point came across. Voontu would be more than happy to teach the village a lesson.

. . .

"Fadilan!" The blaster was starting to run hot. This was a _lot_ of shooting to be doing with his butt out to the wind. Three guards had managed to entrench themselves just out of clear range, and it was too risky for him to lob one of his remaining detonators in here. They liked to pop in and make sure he was awake, too. It would be _nice_ to at least have the shelter of one of those damn blast doors. "You've had four minutes!"

The Ithorian made a faint, frantic noise but didn't say anything.

"We getting somewhere? You said three for one door!"

"Five total! Five! Do not rush me!"

Din realized his minor mistake with a cold slap. The doors weren't going to open one after the other. Fadilan's code-running meant they would both open as one, and then the droid-brained laser would tag them. While he had three guards trying to get in his face. Within the next few seconds.

_Frag me_, he thought with hot irritation, and turned at the sound of the doors opening, his senses slowing down to absorb everything that happened next… the trio of timed blaster shots that slammed into his beskar armor, pushing him harmlessly but annoyingly forward into the Ithorian, stumbling them, slowing and confusing his aim. His helm's visual aids catching the light of the droid-laser fixating on a target, the tiny hum of it heating up, the building whine of the next salvo of blaster fire…

Din inhaled to freeze the world around him for a crucial moment and blew the laser off the ceiling, shoving himself half across the floor with the Ithorian dragged safely beneath his armor, through the twin blast doors, and then flopping over onto his back to kick the controls and shutting the doors behind them. _Frag me!_

Fadilan, high on one of the worst days of his life so far, started to gag.

Din dragged himself upright and quickly scanned the console, finding exactly what he hoped for. He slammed the commlink awake and input the frequency command he wasn't supposed to know about.

The response was almost instant. "Unidentified contact, clear the line," came a clipped male voice.

"This is an emergency signal out of Jhas Krill, eleventh moon of Jhas, Hoth system," said Din. "Civilian population is being held against their will under the control of a Hutt cartel."

"Sir, prank comms carry a heavy fine under-"

"_Come fine me._ Civilian population is currently in conflict outside the Hutt's fortress, no idea about casualties."

"Sir-"

"I'm talking to some kid in Echo Base. Go get your supervisor, tell them to come kick my ass, I don't care, send that damn X-Wing squad you've got unless you want a town full of dead Republic colonists on your hands today."

Dead air.

"Sir, please identify yourself," said another voice, just as clipped, but a hell of a lot older and refined sounding.

"I'm a concerned citizen." An idea struck him. He reached out with the line still active and slammed the blast doors open. Blaster fire snapped and echoed throughout the air, amplified by the crappy acoustics and followed by the frightened shouts of the Ithorian. He shut the door again as he listened to feedback squeal off the comm, followed by the man on the other end of the line swearing up a storm. _That_ ought to convince him. "Requesting that emergency launch ASAP."

"We're on it. _Citizen_." The comms cut out.

Din tiled his helmet down to regard Fadilan. "That was easy."

"No it was not!"

"You up for helping the front lines clean up some of Voontu's men? Got a spare blaster."

Fadilan began to quiver all over again. "No! I cannot fight, I am a-"

"Relax, Fadilan. I'm kidding. You did great." He reached down and patted the Ithorian's shoulder. "I'm going to make sure you're safe in here before I go help them myself."

. . .

The village rebellion collectively froze for a dangerous second as the armored Hutt slunk forcefully afield, the broad head looming high enough to command fear, and the red eyes wide and furious under a black helmet. The rifle in those thick hands got them moving again, one of the younger gunners trying to keep his forward push going suddenly falling back to avoid the salvo of las-rifle fire. He dodged, but barely, and lost the precious meters of fighting space he'd been trying to hold.

The sniper, Haku, had let the boy slap a bacta patch onto his hand. Now Dyrric was stuffed under his elbow, and he used the now-silent lad to steady his aim while he painfully took a shot at an exposed part of the Hutt's face. The shot glanced off the helmet as Voontu's luck made him turn his head to shoot at another attacker, causing him only to roar and draw down on the sniper instead.

Haku shoved himself and Dyrric prone, wincing as shrapnel shredded off of their makeshift fortification, landing hot on his back. He glanced up to see his fear confirmed. Their shielding was now worthless. The others would have to try and cover for them until they could get into a safer position.

A single shot, so powerful and slow that it seemed to wheeze as it pushed through the air, forged a small crater in front of the Hutt. Voontu reared back with a shout, looking up at the remaining tower.

Haku sensed his chance and grabbed Dyrric, following Fala Deera's call without stopping to look. As he fled into renewed cover, he caught a glimpse of a Twi'lek taking a sniper's roost of his own - and artfully downing a pair of the Hutt's hirelings while Haku shoved the child down behind Fala. "Not one of ours."

"No," she said, peeking carefully around the edge of their shielding. "Not the Mandalorian, either."

"Would you recognize him without the armor?"

She squinted at the profile of the man in the high tower. "Well, for one thing, be a pain in the rump to hide those lekku tendrils under a helmet. For another, our guy is shorter."

"Well, anyway, blessings to him and all his shots." Haku stripped a drained shot cartridge from his own rifle and slapped in a new one. "So what brought you out here, child?"

Dyrric shivered, on the light edge of shock. His eyes had far too much white in them. None of this had been in his innocent fantasy. "I just wanted to help!"

"No one else with you? Not the Mandalorian's strange child?"

"No! I would never! Dad's playing with him! He doesn't know!"

Haku and Fala Deera shared a wry, exhausted look before the shooting started anew, dropping them all into fading cover as the Hutt's presence seemed to refresh his mercenaries.

"Are you going to tell him?"

Fala took a lucky shot, dropping a would-be melee attacker before he got to their front line. "Damn right I am, Dyrric. You are damn right."

"He's going to _kill_ me."

She shook her head and lined up another shot. _Kid, if this doesn't end us all, you'll survive your dad_.

. . .

Din Djarin sensed the figure coming up on him this time, catching the faint hint of coils slithering along the metal floors. He snapped around to see the Hutt still at the far end of the hall, then lowered his blaster as he saw it was Worrex instead, his hands up. "You should get back into safety."

A look of amusement creased the thick muscles of the young Hutt's face. "If you're not here to kill me after all, Mandalorian, then I expect I am safe enough." Another one of those dense, turf-destroying shots echoed throughout the halls. They were close to the front now, enough to hear Voontu's men swear at each other while reloading. "And I will be safer yet when I'm closer to my old friend."

The Twi'lek. Din thought the man seemed unusually aware. And, by the sound of it, he was a heavy sniper.

Nice.

"We need to end this matter," said the Hutt, as if sensing the rest of his thoughts. "If we can get to my vessel, I can call for a Republic patrol. Voontu's devices can't block my ship. I know his tricks too well."

"That's already done. They're on the way."

Worrex looked at him appraisingly. "Excellent. You are with the villagers, then?" He took Din's silence as an answer. "I have many questions about my brother's lies, but this is not the right hour for them. And likely you are not the right man to answer all of them. I will shield, Mandalorian. Walk beside me. Voontu will not fire on me. You will have free aim for what you think you may need."

"That's a rough gamble, Hutt." He didn't bother to keep the doubt out of his voice.

"It is. It is also the only game that matters. If he would willingly break the vows of our family, then he was _never_ meant to be our heir." Worrex's voice turned firm. "And that realization, if nothing else, can break him." He glanced down at the Mandalorian, beginning his quick slither towards the front. "If you will excuse the polite jest, it is… our _way_."

. . .

The Mandalorian's Amban rifle was in his hands as he strode onto the field in Worrex's large shadow, disintegrating a Trandoshan merc busily shooting up a creaking scrap of cover midfield. Logic told him the mercenary had been focusing his fire there to get a command target instead of helping his chums fend off another attempt at a charge, probably Fala Deera herself. He took advantage of the confusion that rippled throughout the scene at the sight of _two_ Hutts, clearing the way for a partial charge along the left flank, taking a clean headshot with his blaster.

The Twi'lek sniper didn't miss a trick. He followed up on Din Djarin's executions with a heavy shot at one of the remaining defensive fortifications on the enemy side, taking out the Gamorrean hunkered there as collateral damage. Now that partial charge could make a full push, stunning the Hutt's remaining defenders.

They did as Voontu roared in anger, his attention divided by the sight of his brother approaching, by a glint deeper afield. Fala Deera's fortification couldn't hold. Din saw her, an old man, and _Dyrric_, of all damned people, fully exposed to enemy fire. Din jerked forward, his mind already calculating the outcomes and finding all of them bad.

Voontu had done the same, drawing down on the trio with the rifle in his hands. Time slowed once more for the Mandalorian.

The Amban wasn't ready to fire again yet. His blaster wouldn't be enough to penetrate that thick armor, much less the Hutt's hide. He was too far away to intercept the shot with his own armor.

He began to run anyway, his imagination already seeing the shots fly through the air, seeing Dyrric prone and still, the old man shattered, Fala gone, all of it.

"Voontu!" Worrex shouted, faster than Din, slithering past him with a rush of air to put his bulk in front of his brother, his hands in the air. Unarmored, eyes open, ready to take the shot into himself. "Don't do this. _Don't_."

Voontu snarled and raised the rifle. Din saw what was coming and kept moving. He could aim over his brother's shoulder and kill the villagers anyway, kill the pale, crying boy, yet keep his oath to do his kin no harm. The rifle was rising as time slowed, a thick finger curling around its trigger… Din was still out of position to absorb the shot, and he ran, hoping…

The shot never came. Din stood where he needed to be, the Amban giving a soft whine to tell him the next shot was ready, but Voontu did nothing. His eyes stayed locked on something behind the Mandalorian, never looking at his brother. And still in silence, the rifle lowered.

"Voontu," said Worrex, reaching towards his brother. Voontu slapped his hands away, roughly. Worrex tried again anyway, and a moment later he'd gently wrested the weapon out of his brother's hands. He passed it behind him, towards Din. He stepped forward to take it. "It's over. The Republic is coming."

Voontu jerked, looking around as if for an escape.

"No. You're staying. _I_ am staying. We will sort this matter out, resolve what you've done. _Together_." Worrex didn't let go of his brother's arm, turning towards the Mandalorian and then looking towards Fala Deera. "Are you in charge of the village, mistress?"

"I'm sister to the head," said Fala shakily, obviously not quite sure what to make of this. Her arms stayed wrapped protectively around Dyrric. "Security."

"I understand," said Worrex, kindly. "I have an excess of medical supplies on my ship, mistress. Nari will retrieve them for you. I see many of you stand but are wounded. When the Republic arrives, I will help explain what I can, and I look forward to understanding, and then, rectifying, what my brother has done to your people."

Voontu grunted, sounding small and defeated.

"I understand if you're unconvinced. It will be my honor to overcome that." Worrex turned to the Mandalorian, politely ignoring the look of shock on the human faces. "Thank you for accompanying me."

"Didn't do much on this part."

Worrex squinted at him, amused in a cheerful way that was a bright mirror of his brother. "It mattered. You were here to witness an important thing."

"Which is?"

Worrex turned to his brother. "You _chose_ to not take that shot, Voontu. You have kept your oath, and even in your desperation and rage, you did not kill one who was defenseless."

"Weakness," snapped Voontu. He snuck a ferocious glance at Dyrric, as if the child himself was the one to defeat him.

"No," said Worrex. "Another kind of strength."

"The hell happened on Nal Hutta?" asked the Mandalorian, unable to stop himself.

Worrex rolled a heavy, ruby eye over to him. "To be fair, my family is regarded by many other clans as… eccentric." He looked up as new sound ripped through the skies. The X-Wings were arriving. "I like to think of it as an evolution. Sometimes evolution is difficult, at first. But worth it."

Fala reached for the Mandalorian's arm, glancing up as the first lean shape passed in front of the sun. He took the hint. If he wanted to get out of the scene, now was the time. Let the Deeras and the younger Hutt sort this out. Maybe not jump offworld just yet - the kids deserved a goodbye. But at least shove the Crest somewhere more hidden and hunker down, keep his name out of it.

He slipped off before anyone could thank him again.


	10. Chapter 10

For the first time in its short history, Witchmoat bustled. People in Republic uniforms milled around the town, sometimes helping to set up new security systems, often looking up in wonder at the thick jungle the village lived in renewed harmony with. There were a few unique characters around, too. Worrex, the good-natured Hutt, had stayed behind with a few former hirelings to help the village take full and efficient control over their lumber mills, and had even offered a personal engineer to tear up and re-work the useless pleasure skiff into a wood hauler at his cost.

His brother was still on-world, as well. A storage tank had been quickly refitted into a temporary holding grid, with Voontu often found peering out at the ruins of his 'empire.' The Republic judiciary was humoring Worrex's request to hold at least part of the criminal investigation and trial on site, although his suggestion of certain rehabilitative criminal reforms for his brother were harder fights that would go on for days to come. Mo Deera, bemused by the kind Hutt, was at least hearing him out. Fadilan was less impressed, which was reasonable. However, Fadilan was also looking forward to the strong chance the Republic was going to remand the low-orbit port to him, _and_ help fund the education plan he still had uploaded in its banks.

The other new faction left a riddle for the villagers. They acted like they might be some particularly eccentric group of archaeologists, whispering to each other and studying marks in the trees around the old Nightsister hut, but they didn't touch much. Also, they seemed to be waiting for someone important to arrive. The village took gentlemens' bets on who - a planetary governor to be assigned to them, perhaps?

The Mandalorian and his child were gone. They'd stayed one more night, shifting around in the quiet places that popped up as the Republic moved in, and the strange little child and Dyrric played with each other as Dyrric tried to explain to him why he was so sad. Losing a friend, even for good reasons, always hurt. Perhaps the child understood, but he still seemed happy when he hugged his new friend goodbye.

It wasn't until after he'd wiped away his last tears that the boy realized his friend had pressed something small and light into his hand. A strange crystal, taken from the hut that one day they'd gone to look at it. The child _had_ taken something from the mysterious chests, after all. Dyrric kept it with him now, in his pocket, worried about its presence and already missing his friend. He doubted the accidental trade they'd done was a fair one - the plush old toy for this possibly magic crystal.

The Mandalorian hadn't seemed thrilled about the porg toy, though. That was kinda weird. At least Mo and Jerrit had shared a good laugh at him over it.

. . .

The important arrival was nothing anyone expected. She swept into the village in a long red robe, the hood of it thrown back to show gleaming hair, grey skin and darker marks along a face that gave no hint of her true age. She smiled easily at the knot of villagers that met her arrival, and clapped her hands together at the sight of the old hut, obviously delighted by it somehow. Her accent was unusual, clipped off in a way the villagers had never heard before. "Oh my, it's so alive!"

"Ma'am," said one of the strange researchers waiting for her. "The innkeeper's been watching over it. This is Jerrit."

She turned to Jerrit with a smile. "You've done well as a guardian."

Jerrit lowered his eyes, his hand resting lightly on his son's shoulder. "If I may be honest, ma'am, I think my son's done almost more."

Dyrric winced, knowing it was both a chide and an attempt to explain to the new arrival why anything might have been broken in there. Jerrit had taken his 'adventure' well enough, in context. He had wept, and he had hugged the boy, and then he had hugged Fala Deera and the old sniper for keeping him safe. Dyrric didn't understand why he hadn't gotten yelled at more. Just the crying, and more hugs after. He'd probably figure it out when he was older. "I didn't do anything to it, it was just too neat to leave alone. I just liked to play there sometimes, I-"

The strange lady bent down, reached out, and gently tapped his nose, giggling. "It's fine! I can tell its protections welcomed you, and it liked you very much. Shelish likes to play the mean old sister, but she hides a fine, strong heart deep inside her chest."

"Shelish?" Dyrric looked up at her. "Was she the witch who lived here?" He blinked, putting a guess together and coming up with something too awesome to contain. He almost squealed it. "_Are you a witch?_"

"Dyrric!" Jerrit sounded less furious and more like he was about to faint dead out.

"Yes, I am, young man!" She tapped his nose again and stood up, enjoying his look of awe and near worship. "My name is Merrin. I am a Nightsister of Dathomir, and these good people are helping me recover little bits my sisters left around the galaxy. So I may remember them, and gather them home."

Dyrric began to wriggle out of his father's stunned grasp. "Oh wow, oh great, that's so - who was there with her, there's this fur all over, and what sort of herbs do witches grow, and-"

"_Dyrric_!" It sounded defeated under the peals of Merrin's merry laughter. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, I assure you. I like enthusiastic people. My homeworld spent long years in glum and lonely shadow, and each day among you is a treasure I bring home to relight it. It's been a long journey, but a good one." Merrin crossed her arms and studied Dyrric. "Shelish is still roaming quietly, though I know she is safe. Old and grumpy, but safe. Like me, she found a certain kindness in a magic others dismissed as destined for darkness alone. She _did_ have a friend, last I knew. I will need to see the fur to be sure, because they are not as easy to sense through our magic, but it is likely to be Wookie fur."

Dyrric gawped. Wookies! Oh, this was _too_ awesome a day!

"His name is Owacchi, and he too is doing well." She cocked her head, happy to give him even more to be excited about. "He used to be a pirate, you know. The two of them used to help smugglers, ones that didn't like the Empire very much."

The boy practically shook, his mouth a frozen O.

She put her hands on her hips, becoming formal. "Innkeeper Jerrit, I should like to go take a look at my sister's hut. And I could use a guide. May I hire your son for the afternoon, to show me the little treasures he has seen within?"

Dyrric swept his face up to his father's, nakedly begging for permission. Jerrit, like the Mandalorian, knew when a battle shouldn't be fought. He sighed. "Dyrric, just be careful. And please don't get in the Sister's way."

. . .

Dyrric did his best, even staying behind and to her side. Sometimes he touched the crystal in his pocket, as if for luck, noticing it felt strangely warm. Once, when he did it, he thought Merrin noticed somehow, despite the fact that she was busily naming herb mixtures for a recording device in her hand.

He showed her around, asking about the big purple banner - it was the Dathomirian flag! - and the way the vines seemed to creep around the whole hut in a shield, and the way the wind didn't quite flow right around the hut, as if the hut was telling the weather what _it_ wanted.

According to Merrin, that was exactly what it was doing.

He realized he was getting nervous as she got closer to the boxes that used to be sealed, over in the corner by the remaining potions, and his palms were sweaty and ticklish.

"Did you play here alone?"

"Usually. The other kids were scared of it. Their parents told them it was bad."

Merrin nodded. "Well, that's us adults for you, sometimes too cautious." She turned and tipped him a conspiratorial wink. "But there were a couple with you sometimes. One of them left a trail."

A knot hit his stomach. Had something bad happened? "A… trail?"

"More like a presence. See, Dyrric, my magic is a _little_ like something called the Force. People often think my magic is automatically evil, and the Force is good. But nothing is quite that simple, you know."

He nodded. Of course!

"One of your friends is _very_ strong in the Force. I don't sense them in the village, were they just a visitor, then?"

"He… he was." Dyrric liked this lady, she seemed _really_ nice, but it also seemed smart somehow to protect his little friend. After all, how does a kid that small get a dad like a Mandalorian?

She smiled, trying to put him at ease. "The magic here tells me about them. A curious little shape, talking to it, listening back."

Him? The little one couldn't talk at all!

She saw his confusion. "In a way. But the magic here tells me something changed when this other child was here. Is that true?"

He bit his lip.

Merrin went to him and knelt on one knee, reaching out until he gave her one of his hands. "Young one, you are in no trouble, and your nameless friend will _never_ find danger from me. I am no hunter, and I do no harm, except when I must save another. Something… happened in here. Shelish left a spell behind, a seal waiting for a day when others might need something she left. And that seal is telling me that day came. Can you tell me about it?"

Dyrric looked at her face and trusted his instincts. His other hand fished around in his pocket and found the little crystal the child had given to him. He held it for a moment, feeling its lively warmth, as if his friend was still here, and then unfolded his hand to show it to her.

Merrin breathed softly, shocked. She let go of his other hand and gently cupped this one, studying the crystal. "Your friend found this in here?"

Dyrric nodded, silent.

"In the chests by the table?"

"Yes'm."

"Were there more in them?" He nodded forcefully. The one chest he'd seen, it was like the old stories of hidden treasure, with goodies everywhere! "Many more. My goodness." She closed his hand around the crystal, gently pushing it back towards him. "I'm going to call to one of my assistants, so when I sound loud, don't be scared. Yes?"

He nodded again, still wincing when she sang out a name, touched with that strange magic of hers to boost the call. A young man popped into the door a moment later. "Mistress?"

"Please bring the Deera ladies, Jerrit, and the Republic adjutant in charge, immediately. Tell them this is a direct request from me. I want this to be in clear sight." She continued to gently hold Dyrric's hand, waiting for them to arrive.

When they did, she let the boy's hand go and straightened up. She nodded to each arrival in turn. "Thank you. Now, the reason I am asking you to be present is for purposes of your village's future and the legacy it was granted. This will be official record."

Mo Deera tugged nervously at the collar of her tunic. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything is excellent." Merrin smiled. "I want to be certain your village is credited and honored for its treasure." She didn't wait for a response and went to the small, unlocked chests, picking one up and gasping a little at its heft. She then turned to the village leadership and the Republic justiciar, lifting the lid so that all could see the glittering trove threatening to overspill just this one of three chests alone.

"They're beautiful," said Jerrit, still looking puzzled. "Lady Merrin?"

"They are more than beautiful," said Merrin, proud. "They are kyber crystals, and they are so rare now, because of the war, that there is a gentle sort of 'bounty' on any such discovery." She closed the lid of the chest and placed it on the old wooden table. "By law of the New Republic, Witchmoat is the keeper of a priceless cache. I will make some communications, and when they are done, you will be part of a new and interesting future. The crystals are yours, by this law, and by this gift left behind by my sister. The day will come when a new order may need them, and you will, between then and now, be both honored and repaid for this gift that you hold in trust for them."

"I don't fully understand," said Mo, flat-voiced in surprise. Her sister took her hand, laughing softly in delight.

Merrin laughed along. "From this day forward, Lady Deera, Witchmoat is going to stay very, very busy indeed. Innkeeper Jerrit, your son speaks well of your business. You may have to consider an expansion much earlier than you ever expected." She clapped, just as she had when she arrived. "Oh, my old friend's going to be so excited to hear about this!"

A voice coiled gently, beautifully inside of Dyrric's mind as Merrin's fingers twitched with mystic grace. _And the crystal your friend gave you, that is to be forever yours alone. Remember your friend with it, and know that, in this small way, he helped your village almost as much as this mysterious mercenary no one seems to want to talk about_.

Dyrric started and looked up at the smiling witch who would ask him no questions about that secret, a moment for the two of them alone.

. . .

Din Djarin sighed heavily, one booted foot up on the console of the Crest, the other tapping idly along the cockpit floor. He tilted his head at the sound of the gurgle behind him, the noise of hands patting at something soft.

That fragging, horrifying, staring _toy_. The porg.

Well, the kid did need more things to play with. That was unavoidable. And the kid was happy with it. He couldn't actually begrudge the gift, but damn if he had to like it. Oh well. Maybe the bean would glom onto something else eventually. Sooner, if he were lucky, rather than later.

"Yeah, I know. I wish we could have stayed longer, too. That was a good kid. _Great_ inn. But at least we got all the laundry done, right?"

"Mecch!"

"Look, not everything about being a bounty hunter is shootouts and and following trails and getting crime lords arrested. Sometimes it's boring old adult upkeep." He snorted. "You'll understand someday."

Deeper, displeased. "_Mehhh_!"

"I know, right?" He took his boot off the console with another sigh and looked at his options. With a full fuel gauge and a little extra in storage - the villagers wouldn't let him refuse - he had his pick of the galaxy's lanes this time out. "There's supposedly some genetic libraries out there, a lot of them were Imp strongholds but they might have some clues about your people. Geonosis, Kamino, some weird places in the center of the galaxy."

The child made a gurgling noise.

"I'm not tickled about any of those, either." He didn't bother to suppress a shudder. The clones. The damn _droids_. "We'll keep them towards the bottom of the list for now." He flicked through a list he'd been putting together, muttering the names to himself. None of them were important, but all of them would be a new start.

The child puttered his way out of his seat and put himself next to Din, dragging his toy with him. He reached up and tapped at the display.

Din reached down and gently picked him up under the arms, settling the foundling on his lap. The child cooed and tapped at the shiny, scrolling screen again. "Oh no, you're not picking out our destination."

"_Geh_!"

"I let you pick last time and look what happened!"

The child partially swiveled in his lap and gave him a solid blat of accusal. The porg toy smushed into his beskar plate, a hostile charge of the worst kind.

"You can burp at me all you want, but _I'm_ gonna choose where we go this time." Din gave the child a squeeze to show he was only teasing and there were no hard feelings, and then, on a whim, he picked a destination and let the Razor Crest rip off into the welcome depths of space.

Only the two of them again. At least for now.

It was enough.

_~Fin_

_See you, space cowboy…_

1/24/20


End file.
